MATT HANCOCK MUST REGULATE WILD WEST WEB
- Facebook and Facebook-owned apps used in 52% of grooming cases in England and Wales, where the method disclosed by police
- Victims as young as two targeted by online groomers/predators
- NSPCC urges Culture Secretary Matt Hancock to regulate social networks
FACEBOOK and apps owned by Facebook are used by more than half of online groomers where police disclosed which method predators used, NSPCC has revealed.
In the first nine months of a new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child, there were 1,628 crimes recorded in England and Wales, and police revealed what platform was used in 956 cases.
Facebook and apps it owns, Instagram and Whatsapp, were used in 52% of those cases, with Facebook being the most-recorded site overall.
Cambridgeshire Police recorded 44 crimes for Sexual Communication with a Child over the first nine months of the new offence being in force, and the youngest child contacted was aged just eight years old.
Social media sites used to target children in the county were Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp, Grindr, ooVoo, and Skype, with one paedophile making contact via text message.
Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has heralded the end of the Wild West Web1. The NSPCC urges him to follow through by bringing in a regulator to force social networks to keep children safe.
Figures from Freedom of Information requests show the shocking number of cases where groomers used Facebook and apps owned by Facebook. The youngest victim recorded was aged just two years old.
Where the method of communication used by predators was logged by police:
- Facebook was used in a third (32.6%) of cases.
- Facebook-owned apps Instagram and Whatsapp were used in nearly a fifth (19.8%) of cases.
- The second most-used app was Snapchat – 176 cases
At present, DCMS has plans2 to introduce a voluntary code for social networks, which sites could choose to adhere to or ignore. For the past 10 years, social networks have been allowed to self-regulate, yet they have consistently failed to take the necessary action to keep children safe.
The NSPCC calls on Mr Hancock to go further than this and bring in a mandatory code to regulate social networks to prevent grooming, rather than relying on police to intervene after harm has already been done.
As part of its #WildWestWeb campaign the NSPCC is calling for Mr Hancock to bring in:
- An independent regulator for social networks with fining powers.
- A mandatory code that introduces Safe Accounts for children; grooming alerts using algorithms; and fast-tracking reports to moderators related to child safety.
- Mandatory transparency reports forcing social networks to disclose how many safety reports they get and how they deal with those reports.
Peter Wanless, NSPCC Chief Executive, said: “Culture Secretary Matt Hancock has a golden opportunity to put an end to the Wild West Web and force social networks to protect children online.
“Facebook has shown it is happy to use data for commercial purposes but has failed to harness data in a way that can be used to prevent grooming.
“Facebook should be leading the way, but instead, it has demonstrated time and again that self-regulation isn’t working and social networks can’t be left to mark their own homework.
“Mr Hancock could be the person who makes the internet a safer place, for every child now and in the future. We hope he seizes the chance to do that.”