Youngsters are being urged from today to download the new “panic button” application on Facebook. It will give children and teenagers the opportunity to report abuse to the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) and Facebook.
Up until now Facebook were reluctant to go ahead with the button as they believed their own reporting systems were adequate. With Bebo and Myspace having already installed the button, Facebook were under a lot of pressure to give the green light.
All of this follows after the rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall, who chatted to a 33-year-old convicted sex offender who posed as a teenage boy on Facebook. Back in November 2009, Ceop called for the panic button to be installed on social networking sites, so people were safe and online sex offenders could be traced. Then in April 2010, forty-four police chiefs in England, Scotland and Wales backed Ceop’s panic button idea and signed a letter in support.
Since then, Ceop and Facebook have been in meetings battling the idea of the child safety panic button. Although the application is aimed at youngsters, everyone is urged to add it. Facebook officials are desperate to create awareness of the button as they are hoping it will appear on news feeds regularly.
The panic button application is also reassurance for parents when their children sign onto the social networking site.
After all you never actually know who you are talking to, so before you accept someone’s friend request, ask yourself, ‘Do I know them?’
By Sarah Hartland
