UK regulator fines suicide forum provider £950,000

Britain’s media regulator Ofcom has fined the provider of an unnamed online suicide forum £950,000 for failing to comply with duties under the Online Safety Act, citing repeated exposure of UK users to illegal content and a continued risk of serious harm.

The regulator said the forum, which it has not publicly named, has been linked to more than 130 deaths in the UK and has featured in coroners’ reports.

Ofcom said its investigation, conducted between March 2025 and April 2026, found “illegal suicide content” was consistently present on the platform, including instructional material and threads describing suicide methods.

According to the regulator, some of this content was pinned or reposted by the forum’s own administrators, indicating awareness and inadequate mitigation. Ofcom also said it had evidence of posts encouraging self-harm and assisting suicide, which under UK law can constitute a criminal offence.

The forum’s provider, based outside the UK, argued it was not subject to British regulation. However, Ofcom said the service remains accessible to UK users without a VPN and therefore falls within the scope of the Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to assess and reduce the risk of illegal content.

The regulator also criticised the provider’s attempts to restrict UK access, including IP-based blocking measures that were reportedly inconsistent and later bypassed via mirror sites. A third mirror domain was later taken offline during the investigation.

Ofcom said the provider has now been given 10 working days to comply with enforcement requirements. The regulator is also preparing a court application that could lead to UK-wide blocking of the forum if concerns are not addressed.

Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement, said the platform had “caused unimaginable pain and suffering” and that existing measures had not been sufficient to reduce risk. The provider has not been named publicly due to the sensitivity of the case.

The fine marks one of the first major enforcement actions under the UK’s Online Safety Act, which requires user-to-user platforms to actively mitigate exposure to illegal and harmful content.