Paedophiles use secret Facebook groups to swap images, King child abuse probe

Paedophiles use secret Facebook groups to swap images
By Angus Crawford BBC News 12 February 2016

Paedophiles are using secret groups on Facebook to post and swap obscene images of children, the BBC has found.

Settings on the social network mean the groups are invisible to most users and only members can see the content.

Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said Facebook was not doing enough to police the groups and protect children.

Facebook's head of public policy told the BBC he was committed to removing "content that shouldn't be there".

A BBC investigation found a number of secret groups, created by and run for men with a sexual interest in children, including one being administered by a convicted paedophile who was still on the sex offenders' register.

The groups have names that give a clear indication of their content and contain pornographic and highly suggestive images, many purporting to be of children. They also have sexually explicit comments posted by users....

The Internet Watch Foundation creates a list of web pages with child sexual abuse content and any found to be on Facebook groups are taken down automatically, Facebook says.

Any other material reported to the social network as inappropriate goes through an internal review procedure to check if it is in breach of its community standards.

Facebook says it removes content that includes "solicitation of sexual material, any sexual content involving minors, threats to share intimate images and offers of sexual services"....

She said: "I was horrified. Thinking that these innocent snapshots of my (then) 11-year-old daughter had become the subject of vile comments and disgusting exchanges between members of these groups was really upsetting.

"But equally upsetting is the fact that Facebook allows these secret groups to exist, unmonitored and unchecked, making them rife for abuse by paedophiles.

"There must be a duty of care to users to make sure that paedophiles can't hide on these secret groups, stealing and sharing images of children they find online."

Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said: "I'm shocked those don't breach community standards, any parent or indeed child looking at those would know that they were not acceptable."

She said she did not believe Facebook was doing enough to protect children.... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35521068 

Fourth man arrested in Jonathan King child abuse probe
By Ben Mitchell  18/02/2016
A fourth man has been arrested as part of an investigation into allegations of historical child sex offences involving former music mogul Jonathan King.

The 74-year-old was held by Surrey Police, which is looking into claims linked to the Walton Hop Disco in Walton-on-Thames.

King and two other men were arrested in September concerning the allegations of offences committed against boys under the age of 16.

The investigation, called Operation Ravine, was launched in late 2014 to look into child sex crimes linked to the Walton Hop Disco, following a review by Merseyside Police into a previous Surrey Police investigation that was entitled Operation Arundel and which was launched in 2000.

King, a former chart-topping star and TV producer, worked on BBC shows including No Limits and The Great British Song Contest. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/fourth-man-arrested-in-jonathan-king-child-abuse-probe-34463498.html