Every year, tens of thousands of people in Britain go missing. Many of them don’t even make it into the local news, let alone the national news. This can make their family members upset, and press coverage helps the police find information and witnesses. But the family of Nicola Bulley, who was missing for 23 days before her body was found in the River Wyre in Lancashire on February 19, may wish that her disappearance had gotten less attention.
Maybe because she was pretty, white, and from a middle-class family, her case got a lot of attention. There was a level of voyeuristic speculation on social media that had never been seen before. Lancashire Police Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith, who led the investigation, said she had “never seen anything like it.”
Following her disappearance, and then recovery of her body after 23 days had garnered a lot of media attention. With the social media comes hundreds of conspiracies, which many feel were unnecessary.
TikTok has warned users that they will be banned if they spread false information about Nicola Bulley. This comes after the social media app was criticised for letting conspiracy theories spread on its platform while the mother of two was being looked for.
The social media app said that it would “take action” against people who posted about Ms. Bulley in a way that broke its rules for the community.
On Monday, police confirmed that a body found in a river near where 45-year-old Ms. Bulley was last seen was hers. The body was found about a mile from where she was last seen.
She had been missing for more than three weeks, so amateur detectives, online sleuths, and social media influencers went to St. Michael’s on Wyre to look for her.
In a statement read by Lancashire Police, the 45-year-family old’s said that the press and members of the public, including TikTok sleuths, “must be held accountable” for making false accusations, misquoting, and “vilifying” Nicola Bulley’s friends and family.
“They shouldn’t have done what they did. The family said, “Leave us alone now.”