CEOP renews attack on Facebook The chief of the national anti-paedophile agency has launched another scathing attack on Facebook, branding its refusal to publish an official "panic button" on users' profiles as "arrogant". Jim Gamble, chief executive of CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), publicised figures today showing more …
"Is Facebook so arrogant that it does not matter what the collective child protection community think?" Gamble said in a briefing with reporters.
Is Gamble so arrogant that he thinks that what his tiny knee-jerk media led QUANGO speaks for rational adults, and has some sort of sway over a company that isn't even based in this country? Why should FaceBook have to link to a page of paedo-hunter propaganda?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some links discovered between this Gamble person and the NewsCorp owned knee-jerk tabloid press in this country. That being the same NewsCorp that owns MySpace, the FaceBook rival that seems to not come under the same sort of 'scrutiny' from these people. Call me suspicious, but I don't trust this shadowy CEOP organisation that seems to have taken upon itself the task of censoring the internet for our own safety...
Jim Gamble's idiotic ravings almost make me want to show my support for Facebook by getting an account.
Gamble said: "None [of the 252 reports received this year by CEOP] came direct from Facebook. If their system is so robust and they are receiving so many reports and concerns from young people, then where are they?"
Is anyone, even Jim Gamble himself, so stupid that they might think that's a sensible question?
He wants a direct link to his reporting systems.
Why doesn't Facebook provide one. We all know that *lots* of people world wide start the submission process if only to see what is under the new button then some bright spark will write some code to auto submit the button and millions more will hit the site in a very short time.
I can only assume PJ wants a DDOS attack?
Porno Jims servers would collapse and he would be running to the press for more money for new servers and bandwidth. Then make a request for more staff to process the millions of spam reports. Then in a few years time he would retire and take a job with the pork barrel IT company used to supply said (now unused, probably non existent except on paper) servers.
Moral: Pigs and pork barrels go together!
Considering Ashliegh also contacted their killed on MSN which does prominently display the ceop button proves just how pointless this whole slime throwing match is
Why force a button that is useless on millions of users who would have less than zero use for it. The only people to benefit from the inclusion of a ceop button would be ceops pitifully low self esteem.
When are the register going to supply a panic button to refer people to the music and film industry for clearly being pirates!
This is unacceptable behaviour!
Sorry but the whole idea of the panic button is pointless. Lets be completely honest, if you don't want your kids chatting and meeting with stranger don't let them use the computer unsupervised.
If the police want to justify the formation of incompetent groups of specialists do it based on evidence of the group being effective. Don't blame industry to distract people from your own inadequacies of lossing track of people.
The police should stop trying to be politicians and get on with their job.
I've posted more serious responses to Jim Gamble's rants in previous articles on his harrassment and bullying of Facebook (CEOP being the one true way - maybe he is a frustrated (insert your disliked platform from iphone/Mac/Windows/Linux/Solaris here) fanboi)...
So after reading this one all I can say is, please, someone , form a centre for the prevention of media exploitation by Jim Gamble organization.
And putting a panic button on webpages is Something. The fact that it's generally useless is beside the point, along with a lot of stuff, some of which has made its way into legislation.
Proper education of children by their parents would go a long way to catching this sort of thing - make the children aware of the dangers and listen sympathetically and helpfully without being over-prescriptive if they come back with questions or problems. It's about time we ditched the assumption that the state will come to our rescue every time, because such reliance just makes things worse over time and erodes freedom. Take responsibility for your own life and for raising your children properly.
Good on Facebook for standing up to this sorry, useless bunch of arseclowns. It's high time that the CEOP and the Home Office can't get everything it wants by contantly yelling "Do as we say or you love paedophiles".
I'm so sick to death of this "won't somebody think of the children", bully-boy approach to stifling debate and getting your own way. Alan Johnson and that stupid cockfag non-entity in charge of CEOP ought to simply Fuck Off And Die - if you want to blame anyone for Ashleigh Hall's death, take a good close look at your own departmental failings that allowed Chapman to slip your net and stop trying to blame Facebook. Cunts.
Arrgh, the rage!!!!
While admittedly someone should "think of the children" (and yes I winced to use that phrase seriously) this does seem to be a case of a somewhat inefective organisation trying to impose an equally inefective button on an organisation that already has well developed paths for dealing with this in an effort to justify their existence.
I am a poor, helpless Chief Exec for a quango. If I get more money and publicity for my organisation, I will get a larger bonus. Please note I am not a banker so I am allowed a large bonus in addition to my large salary, pension and other perks.
If you are a global media organisation that runs a social networking website and would like me to provide publicity for you while trashing the competition, please contact me immediately.
And remember our motto - let us think of the children so that you don't have to think at all....
I notice that Jim is off to the face book offices in Washington, I suppose he will be going on a very expensive trip on an expensive seat to an expensive hotel to visit the USA offices, if face book has UK offices, couldn't he just take the tube to see them.
Or is a nice trip to Washington a better thing.
I hope they tell him which way is up.
Paris cos she has a well used one of what he is.
"Is Facebook so arrogant that it does not matter what the collective child protection community think?"
I really wish more people were quite that arrogant.
Thanks to all their stupid and ill thaught out whining, We've had to turn one of our volunteers into someone who does 5 hours a week paperwork, for no reason as we've all got to be ECrb checked anyway.
Its not even as if their stupid button would have made any sodding difference in this case either.
CEOP fight gets public press...gets more complants than year previous, when they lacked such a public profile.
Not an issue of more abuse, just CEOP being better known, and thereby justifying its existance and bigger budget.
CEOP in order to be able to do anything other than uselessly wring its hands and scream "think of the children," would need some degree of superaccess to Facebook. Either to monitor problems, or to resolve them they'll need to be either able to punch through FBs robust (I jest) privacy settings, or have some kind of administrative (as in moderator) access. Give external access to government/quasi government entities to effect changes or draw data from their database. That's a non-starter argument for most private digital companies, although we're seeing some high profile deviations from that norm.
I think it's true that Reverend Jim's vitriolic outbursts get funnier every time he steps up to the mic. He's been rehashing his trite, tabloid soundbites for so long he's probably unaware he's now slipped into self-parody. I suppose that's one of the luxuries of running one of the UK's most feared, powerful and untouchable arms of the Police Service: self-delusion becomes just another way of life for these unfortunates, so used to having their egos stroked, their every demands met, that they just lose touch with any last semblance of common sense.
CEOP is a hopelessly out of control monstrosity, wreaking havoc on the UK's legal system and civil rights at every opportunity, urged on by self-interested child salvationists and ineffectual politicians. I can't see anyone prepared to hold them to account, to get them to back up their myriad claims with any sort of proof. Meanwhile, the UK taxpayer coughs up in excess of £5million a year (and rising) to sail Jim's ship, whilst craven corporations, keen to jump onto the 'me tooism' of the child protection bandwagon also pour in the largess to fill Jim's coffers.
Chasing phantoms, that's all. Imagined dangers and fabled monsters. It's a total disgrace to all notions of common sense and decency that such a powerful organisation has been - and continues to be - indulged by politicians in such a cowardly and uncritical way.
That is of course the !collective child protection community" of CEOP in the UK and er, well, who else exactly?
From Dunblaine onward there have been repeated failures of *multiple* organisations to *really* protect children.
OTOH each occasion has resulted in more laws, more IT systems and more expensive Quangos to administer them. A great victory for the PR departments of these organisations.
However the number of children who are on council's at risk registers and die remains around 7-10 a week
Real children. Real dead. Lowering that average would be a *real* improvement in the UK record on looking after children.
I did not know they had been complaining about Facebook, but not News Corp's subsidiary. as neither is based in the UK and subject to this area of UK law it's curious one gets covered, the other does not.
Regarding numbers I'd say less than 300 on a global population of what, 10s of millions is virtually background noise.
There are real threats to having an internet presence, as there are to living in the real world. It was designed to be used by adults. Growing up is the *process* of learning to live in those worlds.
But seriously, funny you should mention MySpace. The only reason this tit is getting media coverage is because the Murdoch press are so keen to associate Facebook with paedophilia. If you've had the misfortune to read any of his rags, you'll find frequent articles linking the two, even going so far as to use a large Facebook logo in place of the word Facebook in headlines, to really ram the point home.
CEOP seem to be a quango desperate to extend their reach and justify their existence by plastering themselves all over the internet. well I'm not a kid and don't have any kids so don't want or need a big red big brother button all over the place.
why just Facebook? if there's a real danger (above say going to the park or your mom's new boyfriend) why not have this on IRC/MSN/Gmail/etc/etc - but instead they choose to have a go a facebook because it's high profile and as a result they get to raise their profile. how many had heard of this agency before this (not that many people know who they are now)?
why not actually fix social services across the country and then you might actually do some good - but hey I guess doing a few press releases and getting yourself in the papers is more fun.
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