Organization Ceop: Network gives serious cause for concern
Facebook is again criticized by youth activists. The network gives serious cause for concern, says the head of the British organization Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (Ceop) http://www.ceop.gov.uk Jim Gamble. According to the youth protection agency, Facebook has not yet forwarded a single complaint about suspected pedophiles to the police, reports the Independent. The protection of minors in the social network leaves a lot to be desired.
Facebook too sloppy when it comes to protecting minors? (Photo: pixelio.de/S. Hofschlaeger)
Gamble is asking Facebook to provide evidence that employees are actually cracking down on criminals and bullying on the site. In the first quarter, the authorities received 252 complaints about sexual assault, bullying and hacking from Facebook users. However, not a single one was passed on directly from Facebook itself.
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Dispute over report button
The criticism of Facebook follows previous complaints on the part of youth protection groups because Facebook refused to set up a so-called report button for alleged violations on all of its pages. The platform always assures how good its security system is and that many complaints and reports are received from the young people, said Gamble. "But then we ask ourselves, where are these?"
The number of complaints is steadily increasing, Gamble added. The company is only good at removing pornographic or obscene content, as required by US law. "I think Facebook is confusing its access to content with its access to behavior and that is the core problem." Criminals would go online, lure young vulnerable users to offline meetings and abuse them there. In many cases, young people are also bullied online in such a way that they are downright driven to suicide, criticizes Gamble.
Ceop says it receives up to 800 reports a month from Internet users who report suspects. Of the 252 complaints in the first quarter of 2010, two out of five were related to sexual assault.(ck)
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