Facebook site moderators have removed an account believed to have sent explicit material to local schoolchildren after conducting an investigation.
The social media giant said it was investigating claims that schoolchildren in Caerphilly County Borough had been befriended online by the account ‘Lamin Limo’ and subsequently sent sexually explicit images and videos.
Facebook said it worked closely with specialist police child protection services across the world, including the Child Exploitation Online Protection Service (CEOPS) in the UK, to monitor and flag potentially exploitative material.
A spokesperson for the company, which is based California, said: “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of people who use Facebook but sadly there will always be a tiny number of malicious people who are intent on harming others, online and offline.
“Facebook’s community standards make it clear what is allowed on Facebook and our comprehensive reporting system help make Facebook one of the safest places for people to spend time on the web.
“We urge people to use these reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards. Our community operations team works quickly to review the reports we receive.”
Facebook also echoed Gwent Police’s warning to youngsters not to accept friend requests from strangers online.
Police launched their own investigation last week after parents of pupils at St Martin’s School, Caerphilly, were sent a letter on Thursday July 7 from the school’s lead safeguard officer, warning them that several pupils from local schools had been sent the explicit material.
An NSPCC Wales spokesperson said the charity were advocating an increase in lessons to teach schoolchildren about the dangers of social media and the internet, adding: “It is worrying that children may have been exposed to sexually explicit images and the NSPCC believes that more should be done to protect children online.
“We have called for a new online safety plan in Wales which would include increasing the number of lessons in online safety for children and a new regulator if the industry cannot regulate itself.
“Children must be protected from this kind of material and it’s incumbent upon the social media provider to shut this page down if illegal activity has occurred.
“The NSPCC’s Net Aware guide also provides parents with comprehensive advice on social media and the large number of channels now available.”