Facebook chiefs reject police child protection measures

Facebook chiefs reject police child protection measures

Facebook officials have declined to install a panic button designed to protect children from online predators, despite continued pressure from child protection officers.

Officials at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) said management at the social networking site cannot agree on the move.

Jim Gamble, head of Ceop, met executives of the social networking site in Washington last week and presented them with a dossier of child abuse cases in which the site has been exploited by offenders.

His case for installing the button on all of the sites pages was supported by the three main political parties, together with leading child welfare charities.

However, following the meeting Facebook said that although they will add the button to their safety and help pages, it will not be installed on the rest of the social networking site.
The company said that although it was not rolling the feature out across the whole network, it has redesigned its abuse reporting system and offered free advertising worth £5 million to internet safety organisations.
Other networking sites, including Bebo and MSN, have added the Ceop alert button to their sites, giving users the ability to report concerns to police or charities instantly.

Defending the company’s stance on the matter, a spokesman for Facebook said: “When it comes to child safety online, there is no silver bullet. This is why our approach is designed to provide people with a safety net that will protect young people online.
“The range of safety measures we have in place encompasses education and awareness, as well as helping to assist people in instances where they feel at risk, as well as law enforcement authorities when issues have taken place.
“Our research, and the opinion of several other leading internet experts, indicates that a logo or icon for people to press when ‘panicking’ is not the best or the only way to keep people safe. Many vulnerable people do not even realise the danger they may be in when contacted by a stranger online.”
Officials at Ceop welcomed the additional protection measures, but added that Facebook is ''missing the point'' and that they will continue to call on the firm to adopt their reporting process.
In a statement, Ceop said: ‘We believe that without the deterrence provided by direct visible access to the Ceop button on each and every page children will not be appropriately empowered, parents cannot be reassured and the offender will not be deterred.’

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