Rate of revenge porn has doubled 

  • The number of victims of revenge porn has doubled in the last two years, figures suggest. 
  • Some 15% of Britons between the ages of 18 and 45 surveyed by leading law firm Slater and Gordon said intimate sexual pictures of them had been shared without their consent – up from 8% in 2019. 
  • The firm said that nearly one in 10 people admitted they had shared or threatened to share an explicit image – more than twice the number in 2019.  
  • Of those, one in five said they “wanted to scare” the victim, a quarter said it was “just a laugh”, and a similar number believed the image was “their property” to share.
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Facebook apps used in more than half of online child sex abuse crimes  

  • Data from the NSPCC suggests that more than half of the online child sex crimes in one year took place on Facebook-owned apps,  as the charity called for more to be done to tackle abuse in private messaging.
  • Facebook has previously revealed plans to make messaging across its apps, including Instagram and Facebook Messenger, end-to-end encrypted like another of its services – WhatsApp – to boost user privacy. 
  • But the children’s charity argued that these figures, gathered through Freedom of Information requests to police forces, show that Facebook’s encryption plans will leave children at greater risk and accused the social media giant of “turning back the clock on children’s safety”.
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Instagram for Kids: We can’t guarantee new platform will keep children safe, warns Molly Russell’s father

  • iNew reports that child safety campaigner Ian Russell has questioned Instagram’s ability to keep children safe on a new version of its app designed for under 13-year olds, given its failures to protect young people on its existing platform. 
  • Mr Russell’s 14-year old daughter Molly took her own life in November 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content on Instagram, leading him to say the app had “helped kill my daughter”. 
  • While the company made changes to its community guidelines after details of Molly’s death were made public in 2019, including banning graphic self-harming images and video and adding ‘sensitivity screens’ to blur images, there was “still too much harmful content available on the platform” three years on, he said.
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Prophet Muhammad cartoon sparks Batley Grammar School protest 

  • A teacher who showed pupils an “inappropriate” cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad – sparking protests outside a school – has been suspended. 
  • The image depicting the founder of Islam was used in a lesson at Batley Grammar School on Monday. 
  • Videos posted online show dozens of people standing outside the school on Thursday, with some demanding the teacher be sacked. 
  • The government said it was never acceptable to “intimidate” teachers. 
  • Head teacher Gary Kibble apologised “unequivocally”, adding the member of staff had “given their most sincere apologies” and been suspended pending an investigation.
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    Mum found guilty of grooming 12 year old boy 

    • A jury has found a South Derbyshire mum guilty of giving a 12-year-old boy crisps and sweets in return for sexual favours. 
    • The trial, lasting almost two weeks heard how the offender encouraged the victim to skip school and meet her in a field where some of the activity took place.A jury spent more than a day deliberating before finding the 38-year-old guilty of three counts of sexual assault of a child aged under 13, two counts of inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and one count of child abduction.
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