Daily Safeguarding Update

Facebook Launches its own Dating App in the UK to Rival Tinder and Hinge

Facebook has launched its own dating feature to rival existing apps such as Tinder
Facebook Dating will appear on the social network’s mobile app and website for users in the UK and Europe from Wednesday
It will allow people to explore potential romantic relationships with users who are interested in the same groups and events as them
Daters can share their Facebook and Instagram stories to their profiles to give possible matches a better idea of who they are and how they live their life,
A “secret crush” feature will also enable users to select existing Facebook and Instagram friends they may want to date – but this will only materialize if both parties match – otherwise the selection remains anonymous

Students have been left feeling “threatened” and unsafe after a LGBT university association Zoom meeting was “hijacked” by more than 15 people shouting “homophobic slurs”
The online meeting at Durham University was disrupted with loud music, shouted abuse and “sexually explicit videos”, say LGBT groups at the university
The event was for new students who are already facing Covid restrictions
Durham University said such behaviour “will not be tolerated”
“To hijack an event like this in such an aggressive and targeted way is nothing less than a hate crime,” said a statement from LGBT groups at the university, including St Mary’s College, where the incident took place earlier this month

Australian police have arrested 44 men across the nation on suspicion of possessing and producing child abuse material
Sixteen children had been “removed from harm” in the process, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said
The arrests followed a year-long investigation into images and videos that were shared online
Police laid a total of 350 charges, all related to possessing or producing child exploitation material to suspects aged from 19 – 57
The men had allegedly used a cloud storage platform to share the abuse and the AFP described some evidence as among “the most abhorrent produced”
Commissioner Reece Kershaw said identifying and rescuing victims was a “race against time” in such cases and that “pixel by pixel, our investigators painstakingly look for clues and never give up,” he said

Users who have had their videos removed on TikTok will now be given a more specific explanation
Before this development, user’s videos would have been deleted for ‘violating guidelines’, but not offered an explanation on how or why
TikTok will now tell users which specific policy your post was violating, following similar moves by other social media companies
Users will still be able to submit an appeal

The probable rates of mental disorders among children and young people has increased by almost half since 2017, England’s official survey into child mental health has found, with Covid and lockdown identified as aggravating factors
One in six children aged five to 16 was identified as having a probable mental health disorder, meaning five children in a class of 30 students. This represents an increase from one in nine children in 2017
There was an increase in mental health problems among both boys and girls, but it was more pronounced among primary-aged children, especially boys aged five to 10, according to The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2020 report, published on Thursday by NHS Digital.
Experts said the increase in mental health problems was “dramatic” and the report “extremely alarming”
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, said it “should shock the government into immediate action to tackle a growing epidemic”