Police chief savages social media firms on terrorism
He rages at ‘Wild West’ web filled with porn and bullying
A POLICE chief has launched a blistering attack on social media firms for letting terrorism, child porn and bullying flourish online.
Mike Barton says Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others enjoy ‘eye-watering profits’ while the web is a ‘Wild West’ zone.
In the strongest attack yet on social media from any police chief, the Durham chief constable said Twitter and Facebook were regularly used to ‘harass, bully and stalk’.
He accused the web titans of looking the other way while serious crimes such as child abuse, terrorism and cyber stalking were ‘allowed to happen and sometimes incited to happen because of social media itself’.
Mr Barton, head of the National Police Chiefs’ operations council, said he had written to Twitter’s then chief executive Dick Costolo in 2015 over its lack of co- operation with police but no one bothered to reply.
He added: ‘I am not saying you can stop all crime on the internet. What I’m saying is I think they could do more.’
Mr Barton said he wanted the internet turned from ‘the wild west’, where criminals act with impunity, into ‘ a position where people feel they’re going to get caught’.
He voiced his frustration that officers probing cyber harassment and bullying get little co- operation from the firms involved. ‘Their online platforms are invented by them and run by them. The onus is on them. They’ve all got responsibility,’ he said.
He challenged social media firms to plough profits into systems to detect crimes such as the live streaming of child pornography.
Mr Barton said if Beijing could block the words ‘empty chair’ when a Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner was not allowed to collect his award, it must be possible to wipe criminal content too.
‘The algorithms exist. If you can stop “empty chair” you can stop “raping babies”. People researching raping babies — are you saying that is free speech? I do not think it is. There are some remarkable acts of philanthropic generosity of internet firms who are making eyewatering profits — why don’t they just stop crime and pay taxes?
‘They think the police have a responsibility to investigate a crime but they don’t have a responsibility to prevent it.’
He said the companies were having to rethink their systems because terrorists were now making money from their videos.
Last month the Mail revealed how hate preacher Tarik Chadlioui, accused of inspiring a European network of jihadis, made £20,000 posting clips on YouTube. His footage is still online despite his arrest in Birmingham on behalf of Spanish authorities who accuse him of terrorism offences.
Police in England and Wales record 15 internet child sex offences a day and make more than 400 arrests a month in relation to indecent images of children.
Mr Barton demanded ‘ fairer funding’ from the government to tackle it and called on Twitter and others to impose life bans on those responsible for the sick content.
Twitter said links to child abuse were routinely removed and the offending accounts could be permanently suspended. It was now having to act against 10 times the number of abusive accounts as the same time last year.
YouTube said: ‘There should be no place for violent extremism on our services. We are already working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle this problem.’