Man found guilty of sextorting a child in West Yorkshire 

  • A paedophile blackmailed a schoolgirl into sharing sexual abuse images before sharing nude photos of her online when she refused to comply with his demands 
  • The offender, from West Yorkshire subjected the 14-year-old girl to nearly a month of ‘sextortion’ in March 2019, during which time she self-harmed ‘nearly every day’
  • Leeds Crown Court heard that the offender followed the girl’s own Instagram followers before posting two photos of her on the social media platform 
  • The married 37-year-old dad was jailed for three years and four months after pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and distributing indecent images of a child 
  • He was also made subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, banning him from having unsupervised contact with any underage girls 
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              Scottish police report increase in online sexual abuse of children  

              • Reports of online child sexual abuse and exploitation have increased by 13.4%, according to Police Scotland 
              • A total of 1522 child sexual abuse crimes were recorded between April and December last year, a 13.4% increase on the same period in 2019. This is 33.9% higher than the five-year average 
              • Police Scotland’s dedicated online CSAE taskforce has arrested 214 people in almost six months since it began operations on September 1 last year, resulting in 51 children protected and 286 safeguarded 
              • Assistant Chief Constable Judi Heaton, lead for major crime, public protection and local crime, said: “Online harm continues to be a threat to the safety and wellbeing of children in Scotland 
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                North Yorkshire police concerned over actions of online child protection activists 

                      • Detective Inspector Paula Eccles, of North Yorkshire Police’s safeguarding team has said online Child Abuse Activist Groups are putting innocent people in danger, interfering with police investigations, and risking the course of fair justice 
                      • She is urging those involved with such groups, often referred to as, ‘vigilantes’, to leave investigations to the police 
                      • In recent years there has been an increase in the number of these groups nationally, including numerous instances in the force area where groups have live-streamed or posted videos on social media while confronting individuals they believe are involved in grooming children online 
                      • Paula Eccles said “the police service does not endorse online child abuse activist groups and we will not work with them…unlike our highly-trained officers in the Online Abuse & Exploitation Team and the Digital Forensics Unit, they operate without any procedures to keep people safe”
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                        TikTok agrees legal payout over facial recognition 

                        • TikTok has agreed to pay $92m (£66m) to settle a lawsuit accusing it of misusing artificial intelligence to track and store users’ data
                        • A group challenge alleged it breached laws by using software to recognise facial features in user videos and algorithms to identify age, gender and ethnicity 
                        • It also alleged that user data was sent to China 
                        • TikTok denied any wrongdoing but said it wanted to avoid a court case 
                        • TikTok said in a statement: “While we disagree with the assertions, rather than go through lengthy litigation, we’d like to focus our efforts on building a safe and joyful experience for the TikTok community” 
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                                Twitter unveils ‘super follow’ feature 

                                  • Twitter has announced plans for a new “super follow” feature which will enable account holders to charge for exclusive additional content
                                  • This could take the form of extra tweets, joining a community group or receiving a newsletter, the firm said. 
                                  • Twitter unveiled its plans at a virtual event held for investors. 
                                  • It’s the first time in a while that the platform has announced significant changes to the way in which people can use it. 
                                  • It also said it was testing a live audio discussion service – which has proved popular on a new rival, the audio-only social network Clubhouse. 
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