Facebook under growing pressure over site safety (From The Northern Echo)

Facebook under growing pressure over site safety

10:19am Wednesday 10th March 2010 in

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DURHAM’S chief constable last night added to the mounting pressure on Facebook to adopt a safety feature which would allow its users to report abuse.

The social networking site has so far refused to add the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) button to its site.

However, the revelation that convicted sex offender Peter Chapman used Facebook to meet Darlington teenager Ashleigh Hall before kidnapping, raping and murdering her has led to further calls for the site to feature the link.

Jim Gamble, CEOP chief executive, said Facebook users were having to go elsewhere to report abuse.

He said: “Since November, when we launched the button in AOL Bebo, we have carried out careful analysis to look at varying sites who haven’t adopted our service and the trends are worrying.

“267 reports were received about activity in Facebook for instance during 2009, of which 43 per cent were cases of suspected grooming.

“However, 81 per cent of those reports were made by people having to go to other sites to make the report – that cannot be right.”

Jon Stoddart, chief constable of Durham Police, backed Mr Gamble’s call for social networking providers to adopt the CEOP button.

He said: “CEOP is part of the UK police family and one click on CEOP’s button gives children, young people, their carers and families direct access to a range of credible advice and help.”

Children’s Commissioner Dame Maggie Atkinson said: “I can’t state how strongly I feel that Facebook should be part of this networking of safety concerns across the industry.

“I don’t understand why they’re not prepared to do it.”

In response, Facebook pointed out that Ashleigh had carried out numerous conversations with killer Chapman on Windows Messenger, which features the button, but she never reported him.

A spokeswoman added: “The CEOP button routes the report back to local police forces. CEOP are not the investigating agency.

“In the case of Ashleigh Hall, the report would have gone to Durham Police. So the button becomes one way of reporting to the police, but not a direct way.”

She added: “The nature of the Facebook platform is that you connect with people you know – this is an important safety message we repeatedly give to our users; we don’t want them adding people they don’t know, as this isn’t what the premise of the site is about.”