Facebook fails to remove sexual images of kids

Facebook has been criticised for failing to remove sexualised images of children even after they were reported.

The BBC had sent evidence of the photos to Facebook and fewer than 20% were removed. Instead the social media giant reported the BBC to the police for distributing the images, which had been shared on private Facebook groups intended for paedophiles.

Testing Facebook’s reporting system, the BBC had reported 100 items that included groups specifically aimed at men with an interest in child sex abuse images and stolen images of real children with obscene comments posted beneath them. One image Facebook initially said did not breach community standards appeared to be a still from a video of child abuse, the BBC reported.

Facebook said it had “carefully reviewed the content referred to us and have now removed all items that were illegal or against our standards”.