Online perverts target children stuck at home
THE NSPCC has branded social media a playground for paedophiles and said lockdown makes children more vulnerable to grooming.
The charity spoke out after revealing police recorded more than 10,000 online grooming crimes under a new law that makes it illegal to send sexual messages to children.
The NSPCC is now calling for tougher laws with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat adopting a legal duty of care.
Police recorded 10,119 such offences in the two-and-a-half years since the law came into force.
There were 2,327 in the six months to October alone.
NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless last week urged Boris Johnson not to delay legislation.
He told the Prime Minister that lockdown was the perfect storm with children spending more time online.
The charity chief said: “Child abuse is an inconvenient truth for tech bosses who have failed to make their sites safe and enabled offenders to use them as a playground in which to groom our kids.
“Last week the
Prime
Minister signalled to me his determination to stand up to Silicon Valley and make the UK the world leader in online safety.
“He can do this by committing to an Online Harms Bill that puts a legal duty of care on big tech to identify and manage safety risks.
“Now is the time to get regulation done and create a watchdog with the teeth to hold tech directors criminally accountable if their platforms allow children to come to serious but avoidable harm.”
The NSPCC also revealed that Facebook-owned apps, which include Instagram and WhatsApp, were used in 55 per cent of cases from April 2017 to last October.
The Internet Watch Foundation, which finds and removes online paedophile material, welcomed the push, saying: “The length of time it is taking is leading to uncertainty for us all, which stalls progress.”
Facebook said it had a team of 35,000 working to keep it safe, adding: “There is no place for grooming or child exploitation on our sites.”
ARTIST Robin Wright is lighting up the world with fairy sculptures created from wire.
Robin, 59, started to create them in 2010 and has laid a magical trail of metal nymphs in fields and woods close to his home.
Ten years later videos of them have had millions of views online and he has completed a trail through woods for Staffordshire Woodland Trust.
Robin, of Oakamoor, Staffs, said: “I never knew fairies were so popular until I started sharing images of them.”