Facebook has come under fire for allegedly failing to remove sexualised pictures of children from its website.
Damian Collins, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, expressed "grave doubts" at the social media giant's ability to moderate content.
The BBC said it used Facebook's "report button" to flag up 100 photos on the website but 82 were not removed, with an automated response saying they did not breach "community standards".
READ MORE: Married minister who had seven affairs 'had child with lover'
The images included under-16s in sexualised poses, pages aimed at paedophiles and an image appearing to be taken from a child abuse video.
Among the items not permitted under Facebook's community standards is "sexually suggestive content".
When examples of the images were sent to Facebook, the company instead reported the journalists to police for sharing the pictures, the broadcaster reported.
The BBC also said Facebook failed to remove the profiles of five convicted paedophiles.
Mr Collins said: "I find it very disturbing, I find that content unacceptable.
READ MORE: Married minister who had seven affairs 'had child with lover'
"I think it raises the question of how can users make effective complaints to Facebook about content that is disturbing, shouldn't be on the site, and have confidence that that will be acted upon."
Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, said she was "very disappointed" by the revelations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel