Facebook ‘must not be haven for paedophiles’
Home Secretary’s warning over vile images on social network
FACEBOOK should not be a safe space for paedophiles and terrorists to share ‘hateful’ pictures and videos, the Home Secretary insisted last night.
Amber Rudd spoke out after the social media site was accused of endangering the lives of youngsters by refusing to remove child abuse images.
Child protection charities said sex abuse pictures on Facebook act like a gateway drug to would-be paedophiles, encouraging them to abuse youngsters in real life.
Material including sexual images of children and gruesome terror videos were still rife on the social network yesterday.
Responding to the revelations. Miss Rudd said: ‘Spreading terrorist propaganda and indecent images of children online are abhorrent crimes. What is illegal offline is illegal online and we cannot allow social media platforms to be looked upon as a safe space for sharing this hateful material.’
Within a few seconds of searching Facebook, the Daily Mail found dozens of explicit cartoons of young girls in highly sexual poses.
Even more graphic material is being shared in closed Facebook groups aimed at paedophiles, an investigation by The Times found.
Members use them to share even more violently pornographic cartoons – some involving babies – as well as real photographs and videos of children.
A video appearing to show child sex abuse was among dozens of shocking images in these closed groups. The Times also reported appalling comments by other would-be abusers. In one group, a user said they had seen ‘the most beautiful girl today... she was 5 or 6 but sadly I did not get to talk to her and no interaction was made except for eye contact.’
Facebook’s moderators refused to delete much of the material when it was initially flagged through the website’s reporting system. But when a journalist from The Times approached the social network directly, it apologised and removed the posts.
Facebook works with the Internet Watch Foundation to root out the worst public posts. However, it does not have the same measures in place for cartoon content, or sexualised images that are degrading but may not be technically illegal.
Justin Osofsky, the social network’s vice president for global operations, said: ‘It is clear we can do better, and we’ll continue to work hard to live up to the high standards people rightly expect of Facebook.’ Leading criminal barrister Julian Knowles QC, who has reviewed the images seen by The Times on Facebook, said many of them are unlawful.
He told the Mail: ‘It is an offence to possess or distribute an indecent photograph of a child... Some of the [cartoons] are very definitely illegal. And there were several photographs which were unquestionably illegal.’ The NSPCC added: ‘People must not delude themselves: when they look at a child sexual abuse picture they are looking at a crime scene. Not only are perpetrators creating demand for paedophiles to hurt innocent children, but there is a clear link between looking at child sexual abuse pictures and going on to physically abuse youngsters.’
Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is investigating hate speech on social networks, demanded Facebook explain itself.
She said: ‘We still need to know how many staff they have working on public safety and looking at content… as well as how much they invest in both reacting to complaints and proactively seeking out illegal content and removing it.’
Facebook has become a hotbed for Islamic State supporters to share jihadist propaganda – and its own software makes it easy for any budding extremist to find like-minded people on the site.
Using a fake profile, it took just a few hours of searching pages linked to IS before horrific images and footage of people being dismembered and shot appeared on the news feed. On one open Facebook group that has amassed nearly 4,000 followers, users can watch a 30-minute video that shows a mass execution of more than 50 men.
By looking through the profiles of other users of this page, it was possible to find several who were sharing gruesome videos. Several of the videos breach both major British terrorism acts, according to Mr Knowles.
The row comes after an MPs’ report found Facebook, Google, and Twitter were ‘consciously failing’ to stop their sites being used for extremist propaganda. It concluded they had become ‘the vehicle of choice’ for disseminating material and recruiting people.
The Mail reported the videos and images it found to Facebook on the grounds they were inappropriate or showed ‘graphic violence’.
‘Very definitely illegal images’