Facebook faces child porn probe

Facebook has been accused of negligence over child pornography after users, some of which underaged, were encouraged to post naked pictures of themselves on the website.

Australian watchdog group The Watchers made the accusations following the creation of new pages which are in direct breach of Facebook's 'no nudity' policy.

The group has accused Facebook of allowing the creation and distribution of child porn to go unsupervised with online safety groups criticising the websites reactive actions.

"These pages started a couple of weeks ago and there are clearly underage children on there," says Kate Drury to The Age, member of The Watchers.

"It's disgusting and it's illegal, and these children need to understand that once it's up there it's up forever.

As well as Facebook, Drury has taken her concerns to Crime Stoppers, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Despite receiving no direct reply from the social media platform, Drury noted that eight pages have since closed down in the past week, but warned replacements have surfaced – attracting thousands of 'likes' within hours of going live.

Facebook were on hand to release a statement yesterday, saying it acts quickly ''to remove reported content that violates our policies.

"Specifically, we're sensitive to content that includes pornography, bullying, hate speech, and actionable threats of violence.

"Users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive. We encourage people to report objectionable content to us so that we can react as quickly as possible to review and take down inappropriate material'.

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