Am I the only one who finds these people, Jim Gamble, etc, a bit sickly.

Surely the web already comes with a panic button on every page: the big red "X" in the top right hand corner?


*BBC News - Facebook Resists Installing On-Site 'Panic Button'*

Facebook is continuing to resist placing a "panic button" on its pages despite calls to do so by the head of a British child protection agency.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre wants such a link on every page of the website.

Facebook said an existing link allowing users to report abuse will in future enable a report to be made to Ceop.

Richard Allen, Facebook's head of policy in Europe, said the site was one of the "safest places on the internet".

Facebook and Ceop representatives had a meeting in the US to discuss the issue.

Ceop's director Jim Gamble had a meeting in Washington DC with Facebook, which says it takes the issue seriously.

Mr Allen said Facebook and Ceop had a "common agenda" on child safety on the internet.

He said the site had showed Mr Gamble "a series of measures which we think will meet the requirements that he has".


In our view they are experts at creating a fantastic online environment but they are not experts in law enforcement, the power of deterrents and the reassurance it brings for mums and dads
He added: "We're going to build into our reporting structure an ability for people who are in the United Kingdom with relevant reports to go directly to Ceop.

"There are some issues around the design and the way in which we do that that Jim put to us very forcefully but... in order to change a website as fundamentally as he wishes us to do then that takes some time to work through."

Mr Allen said that US-hosted sites such as Facebook already pass reports of abuse onto a similar organisation in the United States, who work with Ceop in the UK.

"We've said that we're prepared to bypass that and send the reports directly to [Mr Gamble] as well," Mr Allen added.

Facebook currently has a link through which people can report abuse or concerns about other users to the website.

According to Mr Allen, the site has now agreed to allow another window to pop-up when that link is activated, which will allow those reporting abuse to also be able to make another report to Ceop.

Speaking after the four-hour discussion, Mr Gamble said Facebook was "one small step from doing the right thing" but had not agreed to his demands outright.

'Words into action'

He said: "What I am pleased about is there is a commitment from them to improve what they provide to UK policing.

"There is no doubt they are looking to improve their position around child safety and we recognise that. What I am looking for is turning words into action."

"In our view they are experts at creating a fantastic online environment but they are not experts in law enforcement, the power of deterrents and the reassurance it brings for mums and dads."


Ashleigh Hall, 17, was lured by a man using a false identity on Facebook

Chief constables from across England and Wales, including Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, have signed a letter supporting the addition of the extra safety feature.

Facebook had previously said it would not install a "panic button" on its main pages for users to report suspected paedophiles, but would develop its existing system.

Mr Gamble said he could not understand why Facebook would not agree to adopt the button on every page as it was a free way to "help save some children".

"If you're going to operate a business that encourages people to frequent your public place so that you can advertise to them, then let's look after them while they're there."

Last week Mr Gamble said the agency had received 252 complaints about Facebook during the first three months of the year - with 40% of them about the potential "grooming" of children.

Cyberbullying

He said the complaints had come via e-mails and people using other means to complain to the centre as they could not do so via Facebook.

The figures were revealed as part of Ceop's campaign to persuade Facebook to change its mind.

The "panic button" in question is already used by other websites, including Bebo. Clicking on it takes people to a site that details how to handle cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, distressing material and inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Mr Gamble said the issue was an urgent one, especially after the murder of 17-year-old student Ashleigh Hall in County Durham last October by Peter Chapman, a man she met via the site.

Last month Chapman, 33, was jailed for at least 35 years for the killing.

The teenager had been raped, suffocated and her body dumped in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, after agreeing to meet Chapman.

Earlier that month, she had been attracted by a picture of a young, bare-chested man that Chapman - calling himself Peter Cartwright - had posted on Facebook.

Facebook said it was "deeply saddened by the tragic death".

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8616980.stm

Why not equip every person under 18 with a panic alarm attached to their bodies? Every time an adult approaches them or even glances at them in the street, they can set it off and armed police can rush to the scene within minutes to nail the suspected nonce?

It's all a sick pretence this caring about the kiddies stuff. People make me truly ill sometimes.

Thanks Blackit,

At times like this it helps to maintain a sense of perspective.

www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&...mp;q=child+deaths+UK

Jim

Also, without wanting to labour the issue:

"Every ten days in England and Wales one child is killed at the hands of their parent. In half (52%) of all cases of children killed at the hands of another person, the parent is the principal suspect ." (my emphasis)

www.nspcc.org.uk/whatwedo/mediacentre/me...iefing_wda49332.html

And:

Rise in UK's child mortality rate is linked to inequality
Britain has the second highest child death rate among the 24 richest countries in the world, with infants in the UK twice as likely to die before the age of five as children in Sweden, a study has shown.

The researchers, from Dundee University, who link relatively high infant mortality with income inequality, found that in the UK the gap between the haves and the have-nots was the third biggest among the 24 countries. They calculated that the top 20 per cent of people in the UK have more than 2.5 times the income of the bottom 40 per cent, almost double the difference in Japan.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-...equality-442806.html

All of this is available within the first three links on the google results for "Child deaths UK".

Does anyone really care about the children? Draw your own conclusions.

It's a bizarre and wacky idea that would not only be unworkable but abused at the same time. I can see he chaos it would cause right now as opposed to switching off the friggin computer or telling the offender to just piss off. How about the kids just calling "MUUUM"!

Gamble is a typical empire builder in the child 'protection' racket.

Whilst I agree with you Jim, I fail to see the significance of the stat you provided.

Thanks Angel, you write:

"..I fail to see the significance of the stat you provided."

Apologies. I have a habit of assuming things are obvious when they aren't. I provided three stats, and I'll explain each in turn. Together I suggest they show that paedohysteria is not motivated primarily by a genuine concern for children. This supports Blackit's view that it is all a "sick pretence".

The first stats concerned an overall and more or less steady decline in child mortality over several decades up to 2007. This shows that a rational person would be less concerned about child deaths now than in the past. For all that, though I have provided no evidence, I just have a general impression that we were more carefree about paedophilia and the danger to children in the past, compared to the fever pitch of hysteria we have now reached.

I would say the first stats also offer a sense of perspective. I guess they help to suggest that child mortality, though regrettable, is just a part of life. We should do what we can to reduce it, but it will never realistically be reduced to zero, so we have to maintain a balance of considerations rather than hang everything on a single tragic case. This balance seems rather lost.

The second stats are from the NSPCC. They show that 50% of all child deaths are at the hands of their parents. The point is simply that if we were concerned about child killings we would be hearing just as many stories about parents as we do about paedophiles. Instead all we seem to hear about are paedophiles.

The third stats concern a causitive correlation between social inequality and child mortality. Again, if we were genuinely concerned about harm to children we would take seriously the rather unsensational issue of social inequality. Instead, all parties are preoccupied with spending cuts likely to further increase inequality, and ours is both one of the leaders in paedophysteria and in social inequality. Though the link between the two is uncontroversial, I'm not aware that it has ilicited much comment. You can check for yourself. This casts into doubt how much we really care as a society about preventing child deaths.

In conclusion, all these stats seem to point to a lack of genuine concern for children as the primary motive behind the obsession of the media with paedophilia.

Best Wishes,
Jim

It just seems incredible that we can still have these paedohysteria discussions in the media without anyone being responsible or mature enough to point out the flipside - the possible danger of overprotecting children.

We saw a few months back, with the government's vetting plans, a backlash and an often intelligent debate as to the wider social implications of badly thought out knee jerk child protection schemes.

But it seems that was just a section of middle-england realising that their lives might involve a lot more hassle. Screaming death to paedos is fine, so long as you personally don't have to fill in forms every time you give your daughter's friend a lift to school.

It's clear that nobody still is actually thinking about the effect of these things on the children themselves.

As Veritas said, this panic button thing is going to cause mayhem, especially if it becomes standard on all social networking platforms. Basically, it will mean you have to ensure, if you're over 18, that you NEVER come close to interacting with a person under 18 online. That means staying well away from ANY chatroom or forum that even MIGHT allow under 18s to participate. Otherwise you could be the target of a malicious 'panic attack' and find the police at your door the next day.

As children spend more and more of their social time online, this means that they're going to have even less healthy interaction with adults. Surely it's at least a valid point of debate as to what the final effects on young people are going to be?

And people forget that paedohysteria has still only been around in its present form for little more than a decade. We're still to see what kind of adults we're going to be producing, adults who have become the first generation in history to be raised since birth to fear every single grown-up as an evil monster.

I'm not very optimistic.

Blackit wrote:
We're still to see what kind of adults we're going to be producing, adults who have become the first generation in history to be raised since birth to fear every single grown-up as an evil monster.

I'm not very optimistic.


I think kids have been able to see how stupid some adults can be and we can try to avoid repeating their mistakes. Too many people have been speaking for us without listening to us. Hopefully the next generation can handle things much better than the present. So you can be a bit optimistic.

Well said pumpkinhead. I have every faith in our young people. I don't speak as a decrepid old man either...I speak as a decrepid forty something. I know quite a few youngsters (many youngsters now in the extended family) and they are bright, beautiful, highly intelligent, outgoing, non-prejudice, very amusing, and know a damned sight more than even I do.