Sky Broadband, the second-largest internet service provider in the UK, has blocked access to a site promoting suicide to its 5.7 million users. TalkTalk, another provider, has added the controversial site to its list of inappropriate content, making it available to be blocked by customers with its HomeSafe safety filter. The move follows a BBC investigation that found that the site has been connected to more than 50 UK deaths and that British authorities failed to act in response to official warnings about it. Bereaved relatives had contacted ISPs requesting that they block the site.
The site is accessible to anyone on the open web, including children. Sky Broadband has added the site to a list of sites that are blocked by its Sky Broadband Shield safety filter, automatically activated on home routers, and has “moved as quickly as possible” to block the online forum, it said. Joe Nihill, who died in 2020 and left a note requesting that his family get the forum shut down, exchanged messages with other users of the site who gave him advice on the most effective means of dying.
Digital music streaming service Spotify has disabled a “social login” button that allowed users of the suicide-promoting site to use their existing username and password to register or log on to the music app, according to the BBC. The feature was enabled by a third party developer, in violation of Spotify’s terms of agreement, and was removed as soon as the company was alerted to its presence, it said.
Lamarcus Small was identified by the BBC as one of the creators of the site and was traced to his home in Alabama. He refused to answer any questions, but an account in his name on the controversial platform “Kiwi Farms” has since called on UK users to lobby MPs against potential moves to block the site under the country’s newly passed Online Safety Bill. Responding to the post, David Parfett, whose son Tom found instructions on the site shortly before his death in 2021, said that the site’s creators “encourage others to die and celebrate death [and] have no place in a civilised society
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