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Facebook refused to install the official paedophile ‘panic button’ on its social networking site yesterday in a direct snub to Home Secretary Alan Johnson. The company insisted it would not relent in its opposition to the button, which allows children to report concerns.
It claimed such a system could lead to fewer reports of potential online predators.
The head of the child protection organisation behind the service called the decision ‘mind-boggling’ and accused the company of ‘arrogance’ and ‘remoteness’.
Facebook’s resistance to requests from the Government to use a system already adopted by most other teenage social sites comes less than a fortnight after it was severely criticised over the murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall, whose killer posed as a handsome teenager on the site.
It led to the threat of a confrontation with ministers yesterday after Mr Johnson told MPs the company had agreed to talks with British internet safety experts, and gave the impression he had been told it was prepared to install the button.
Facebook had no ‘objection in principle’ to using the system run by Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, he said.
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