PARENTS of young children will need to take a tough love approach when it comes to keeping sexual predators out of their bedrooms.
That’s according to North of Ireland cyber security expert Robert O’Brien following the latest reports of “disturbing and disgusting behaviour by predators towards children as young as nine” on two of the world’s most popular teen apps.
CEO of global cyber security company MetaCompliance Robert has urged parents to remove apps that fall short on child protection safeguards from their children’s devices.
The Derry man’s advice comes after an investigation revealed how children as young as 11 were being groomed live from their bedrooms with requests to remove clothes and engage in sexual acts.
“Removing apps from your children’s devices might be viewed as taking tough love to the extreme but it could be the difference in keeping sexual predators out of your child’s bedroom,” Mr O’Brien said.
“The latest reports of disturbing and disgusting behaviour by predators towards children as young as nine on the musical.ly and live.ly apps don’t come as surprise.
“Websites such as these can be breeding grounds for paedophiles and if the highest standards of mediation and moderation are not adopted, then it’s simply not worth the risk of allowing children to access them.
“Parents would not allow children to mingle where predators have free reign in the real world so why would they do so in the virtual world.
“From the evidence produced by Channel 4, it appears that efforts to protect young users of musical.ly and live.ly fall very far short of what is needed. ”
“The company says it takes the safety of users ‘very seriously’ but the fact that no action was taken to remove or moderate the abusive behaviour reported calls that assertion into question,” he added.
“Even if reactive moderation is taking place when abuse is reported online, it does not go far enough to safeguard our children.
“Young children cannot always be expected to recognise abuse let alone report it.
“Online sites targeting children and young teenagers must be subject to high level levels of oversight which identifies safety issues quickly and deals with them immediately.
“Otherwise the apps must go straight to the trash.
“It may seem a killjoy approach but this cyber threat impacts our children’s safety. That has to be a priority.”
In response to the investigation’s findings a spokesperson for musical.ly told the Channel 4 News investigation: “We have implemented a number of measures to protect against misuse, and we are actively working to improve in this area.
“We have a moderation team as well as technology that work to block and remove inappropriate content.
“We have recently banned a number of emojis that may have a higher likelihood of being used inappropriately.”
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