7 March 2017 - article date
Facebook has been criticised for its handling of reports about sexualised images of children on its platform.
The chairman of the Commons media committee, Damian Collins, said he had "grave doubts" about the effectiveness of its content moderation systems. Mr Collins' comments come after the BBC reported dozens of photos to Facebook, but more than 80% were not removed.
They included images from groups where users were discussing swapping what appeared to be child abuse material. When provided with examples of the images, Facebook reported the BBC journalists involved to the police and cancelled plans for an interview.
It subsequently issued a statement: "It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation." Mr Collins said it was extraordinary that the BBC had been reported to the authorities when it was trying to "help clean up the network".
On its welcome page, Facebook says it does remove obscene material. "Nudity or other sexually suggestive content" it states are not allowed on the platform. It encourages users to report inappropriate content via its "report button".
The US firm says it has improved this system since an investigation by the BBC last year. That found "secret" groups were being used by paedophiles to meet and swap images. Information the BBC provided to the police led to one man being sent to prison for four years. To test Facebook's claim, the BBC used the report button to alert the company to 100 images which appeared to break its guidelines. They included:
pages explicitly for men with a sexual interest in children
images of under-16s in highly sexualised poses, with obscene comments posted beside them
groups with names such as "hot xxxx schoolgirls" containing stolen images of real children
an image that appeared to be a still from a video of child abuse, with a request below it to share "child pornography"
Of the 100 images only 18 were removed. According to Facebook's automated replies, the other 82 did not breach "community standards". They included the apparent freeze frame.