UK fines online suicide forum linked to 130 deaths £950,000

The substantial fine from the communications regulator was imposed for hosting illegal content readily accessible within the UK.

The penalty comes 13 months after the regulator launched an investigation, the first under the legislation and against this kind of site.

Online safety campaigners have accused the regulator of taking an “interminable” amount of time to act.

It is a criminal offence in the UK to intentionally encourage or assist suicide, and the OSA requires chatroom providers to mitigate the risks of UK users seeing this type of content on their platforms.