The Scottish government is seeking to ‘make the internet safer’ with a new law to protect vulnerable people by making it a crime to assist a person’s self-harm.

A new law, aligned with the government’s self-harm strategy, makes it an offence to encourage or assist a person in injuring themselves – with those found guilty liable to imprisonment for up to five years.

Coming into effect from this week, the new offence is part of an extension to Scotland of the UK Online Safety Act (2023)  which was passed by the Scottish parliament in June last year.

This comes months after Scotland launched its self-harm support strategy, the first in the world dedicated to building national support services, improving data-sharing and compassionate understanding of self-harm.

Scotland’s Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing, Maree Todd MSP said:

“We welcome this new offence which criminalises people who encourage or assist another person to serious self-harm. It will help to make the internet a safer place for everyone.

“We believe this new law aligns with our ambitious approach on self-harm, which is laid out in our dedicated Self-harm Strategy and Action Plan.

“It demonstrates our ambition to improve support for people who self-harm - a critical part of which is ensuring people are protected from harmful communications.”

A 2018 systematic research review revealed that greater time on online social networking ‘leads to greater exposure to and engagement in self-harm’ and an increase in psychological distress and suicidal ideation among depressed adolescents.

The new offence can be committed online, in correspondence or publications, or in-person and applies regardless of whether an individual goes on to injure themselves or not.

The government hopes this will create a safer online environment, particularly for people who may be in distress and looking for help online and will act as a deterrent to anyone who sets out to ‘deliberately encourage others to self-harm’.

Samaritans Scotland Executive Director Neil Mathers said:

“Samaritans Scotland welcomes new legislation to take action against those who encourage or assist another person to engage in serious self-harm.

“It is hugely important to keep people safe online and protected from dangerous content and those wishing to cause harm.

“This legislation should only apply to those who encourage self-harm in a deliberate and malicious way, and aims to deter them from targeting vulnerable people.

“The internet can provide advice, helpful information and supportive networks for people seeking help about self-harm. It is crucially important that people can access this support, while being kept safe from dangerous content and those wishing to cause harm.”

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