Shielding kids from abuse is a moral duty, online giants told

SOCIAL media giants have been warned they have a ‘moral duty’ to protect children from sexual abuse online, amid proposals to enforce a ban on under-13s from Facebook and Twitter.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd urged technology firms to ‘go further and faster’ in the fight against child sexual exploitation, warning that ‘vile’ content is ‘vastly’ easier to find.

She will discuss the ‘surge’ in indecent images online with representatives of Google, Facebook and Microsoft in the US this week.

Her stark warnings about ‘this horrendous scourge’, in an article in The Sun on Sunday, come as peers begin a debate today about age restrictions on social media sites. Charities including the Children’s Society and NSPCC have backed proposals to legally enshrine the age at which children can create accounts online.

Facebook has a lower age limit of 13 and most sites consider 13 to be an appropriate age for children to no longer need parental consent.

However, peers will debate whether the Data Protection Bill should be amended to make it illegal for sites to knowingly allow a child under the age of 13 to sign up.

Additional measures could include restricting notifications on children’s accounts during school hours, The Sunday Telegraph reported.