‘Com groups’ are spreading suicide and self-harm among teens—why is government action painfully slow?

25 March 2025, 13:51 | Updated: 25 March 2025, 14:01

The National Crime Agency’s stark warning about extremely disturbing online threats being driven by fluid ideologies and extreme violence should serve as an urgent wake-up call.

These dangerous groups are recruiting teenage boys as perpetrators and targeting teenage girls with a horrific wave of violence, including grooming them into acts of appalling self-harm and suicide, sometimes livestreamed online.

In a decade of working on online threats, this is perhaps the most disturbing trend I have seen.

These groups pose sickening harm to children but also present a challenge in how we respond. Law enforcement, tech platforms and our existing legislation largely approach threats like suicide and self-harm as distinct in nature.

However, these online threats are now rapidly evolving. The so-called ‘com groups’ at the centre of today’s warning are being propelled by a fluid and mutating set of ideologies and motives.

These groups effectively act as a melting pot for acts of extreme violence, with multiple threats now blurring together. Suicide, self-harm, child sexual abuse and even animal torture – a merging of extreme violence being fuelled by the competitive nature of these groups.

The scale and nature of the threat is growing rapidly. The FBI has now warned of these groups on two occasions and recently warned of a ‘steep increase’ in the threat they pose. Europol and Canadian law enforcement have also raised the alarm.

Despite this, UK lawmakers and regulators have been painfully slow to act.

Molly Rose Foundation first warned Ofcom about these groups in February last year. Despite this, the regulator failed to include any single targeted measure to address these groups and the suicide and self-harm offences they are fuelling.

This is a complete and palpable error. Worse still, even if the regulator now chooses to act, because of the way the Act has been drafted and implemented, it will likely be another 18 months before this deeply worrying gap in protections can be closed.

In the face of this timidity and inaction Government should be prepared to intervene.  Yesterday the Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said he was ready to act decisively ‘where new threats emerge’.

Those threats have emerged and are playing out in children’s bedrooms and on UK streets. They require the Secretary of State’s rhetoric to be urgently matched with further action.

The fluid ideologies driving these groups are essentially the same as were thrust into the spotlight by Axel Rudakubana and his horrific attacks in Southport.

Delay or inertia will mean the Prime Minister once again standing at a podium addressing the nation after tragedy unfolds.

Our polling shows that more than four in five parents want a stronger Online Safety Act.

The Prime Minister must now be prepared to intervene.

We cannot lose this race against the clock.

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Andy Burrows is Chief Executive of Molly Rose Foundation.

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