CEOP Urges More Social Network Protection

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center is urging social networks to install a red report abuse button that connects to police.

More can be done to protect children online from sexual predators, Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP).   Theorganization wants social networking sites to have a red ‘report abuse’ button that connects users directly to police, according to a BBC report.  It’s more than a year since Microsoft put the button on its MSN Messenger, but the CEOP says that predators are now starting to gravitate to social networking sites tofind victims.   With over a million kids in the UK under 16 on Bebo and some 600,000 on MySpace, it raises a potentialproblem. Currently, any reports of abuse go to site administrators, but CEOP’s Jim Gamble wants more.  

"When you are talking about the public in jeopardy and vulnerable, they need to contact law enforcement as soon as possible."

The CEOP has also launched a new site, ThinkUKnow, to educate children, parents and teachers about the dangers they can face online.   The Britishgovernment is putting together guidelines for social networks, and US lawmakers have expressed concern about the protections offered.