Facebook is working on a new safety Internet link following the building media pressure from government agencies and social commentators following the tragic Ashleigh Hall murder case.
UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson has been amongst the leading voices calling for Facebook to adopt the CEOP ‘panic button’.
Richard Allan, Director of European Policy at Facebook, speaking on Radio 4 consumer programme You and Yours yesterday, offered the first detailed position on Facebook policy following the enormous outcry after the murder of teenager Ashleigh Hall by Peter Chapman who groomed the teenager via the social networking site.
Facebook told You and Yours it is working on providing a link to CEOP – the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, but what it will not do is display the CEOP panic button directly on its site as some of its competitors have done.
The UK’s national centre for protecting children, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, has called for all social networking providers, including Facebook, to adopt this one click button on their sites so vulnerable youngsters can get immediate police help and advice.
Facebook has been under enormous pressure to display the button.
Speaking on You and Yours yesterday Richard Allan, Director of European Policy at Facebook, revealed the latest update on Facebook policy on the subject.
In his very first interview on the fallout to the case involving the murder of Ashleigh Hall he was asked how he would respond.
He told the BBC:
“We have looked at the button it has been put to us on a number of occasions by CEOP. But we feel that in terms of the scale of which we operate and the fact that the vast majority of the reports that we are receiving are actually not related to this very serious end of the spectrum that the button may act as a deterrent in fact to people reporting the normal things they are reporting every day and may act to confuse our users.
“There will not be the button that CEOP are promoting what there will be is the ability for any user on Facebook who is reporting inappropriate behaviour to have a very prominent link to say hey here is CEOP go and talk to them if you have concerns and think it is relevant.”
The UK national centre for protecting children, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has recently stepped up its campaign asking all social networking providers to adopt their one click button for children to get immediate police help.
The CLICKCEOP button was launched in 2006 for young people to use whenever they are in danger online.
It has already been adopted by hundreds of sites including MSN Live Messenger in the UK.
A click on the link takes children to a range of advice and guidance pages from organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), Childline and GetSafeOnline as well as CEOP’s own specialist police teams.
The latest figures show that CEOP specialist police teams receive over 500 reports each month.
In the BBC You and Yours interview Richard Allan, Director of European Policy at Facebook also discusses other aspects of Facebook policy, including Facebook’s own reporting systems for safety online.
The full You and Yours interview can be heard at the BBC website via their iPlayer.
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