back to article Facebook rejects CEOP 'panic button' demands (again)

Facebook has again rejected demands from child abuse investigators to publish a branded "panic button" on its users' profile pages. At a meeting in Washington DC yesterday, the social network told Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) it would make changes to send British …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      And while you're at it....

      ....ask him why he refuses to accept that a goodly number of Operation Ore victims did not purchase any child porn as their credit cards were cloned and used in Brazil and Pakistan when they were in the UK. Also ask why these people should still have cautions or worse on their records when it's been proven that much of the Ore hysteria was based on lies and stupidity from the US LEAs.

      Grrrr!

  1. bluest.one
    Big Brother

    Empire Building

    by a trumped-up tinpot dictator wannabe.

  2. HollyX
    Badgers

    Hmmm

    This Jim Gamble character sounds like a nasty bully, if only there were some sort of internet organisation which I could report him to so that he could be locked away ...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Methods

    So having failed to convince Facebook through the usual methods of reasoned argument, discussion and argument, Gamble is trying to use the 4th Estate.

    In other words, because he couldn't get his own way, he's yelling his head off. Grown up behavour.

  4. Semihere
    Megaphone

    How about this Mr Gamble?

    You're a not a government agency, you're a private entity. How about you do what every other private entity who want a presence on Facebook do - PAY FOR THE ADVERTISING SPACE!!!

    That way you'd get your button and Facebook would still be happy.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kids shouldn't be on facebook

    ....and parents who let them should be investigated for neglect.

    Facebook are only guilty of allowing under 21's from creating a profile.

    Why is it always parents who do not look after their spawn who shout the loudest.

    And I dont see CEOP (or the like) protesting the same!

  6. PerfectBlue

    The Point?

    Let me get this straight, this guy is bagging on Facebook for not putting a panic button for children on a site that was designed for adults, is predominantly used by adults, and which actually prohibits most children from having accounts?

    That's great, isn't it.

    Maybe he'd do better putting up panic buttons in butcher's shops so that vegetarians can press it if they get upset by the site of meat. Or maybe a vertigo panic button at the to of Blackpool tower.

    This guy is an attention seeking nobody seeking to hijack a popularist cause for their own promotion. If this were the 1980s he'd be trying to get World of Warcraft to put up a panic button for kids who thought that they were being lured into the occult by D&D playing nerds. If it were the 1960s, he'd probably be out there warning kids of the dangers of communism and free love.

    People like this need a governemtn health warning tattooed on to their heads.

    Better yet, let's all put up a panic button to alert the police about him. He's a threat to the rest of us leading a normal life.

  7. Fibbles

    Sigh...

    The man's an idiot.

    /thread

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How does anyone think this would help?

    I cannot see how a button on a webpage helps? The victim goes out and meets the person who isn't who they claimed. What does he/she do? Tell them to wait there while they nip home, log in to Facebook and click a button to report them? By the time they've gone out to meet them, it's a little late. And if they had suspicions that all was not as it seemed while they were chatting and could click the button, surely they wouldn't have gone to meet them in the first place?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Daft idea

    Also, what happens when user A gets upset with user B over some other reason and decides to press the button in revenge. Or someone just decides to click the button to see what it does or by accident.

    Again, what exactly is the point of this button. Or is it just another example of the magic do everything button that some people think can just be added to a system to make everything work as they want...?

  10. Hairy
    FAIL

    Classic business issue

    With a stakeholder (however marginally) trying to force through one technical solution (which everyone with half a brain can see won't really work very well) rather than engaging in open discussion to find what would actually be the best way to solve the problem...

  11. Doshu

    *sigh*

    As stated, other sites -- that cater more specifically to the young -- have the button and their users still get roped in by (unfortunately) clever miscreants. The fool's wasting everyone's time and risks making the whole issue unpopular by bullying people for no good reason -- perhaps he thinks that the old adage of no publicity is bad publicity applies here.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Reverend Jim Ain't Done Yet...

    And he probably isn't going to let this go, just as he's suggested. When you run a branch of the UK Police Service uniquely gifted with the kind of powers witnessed only in a service like Customs & Excise I suppose you might be forgiven a touch of hubris. Mr Gamble, despite becoming a self-parody at times - is a prime example of absolute power at work.

    CEOP is now a quango, a branch of the UK Police Service, taxpayer funded to the tune of at least £5million per annum, enjoys large donations of cash and expertise from private corporations (VISA, Microsoft, etc) tailgating his moral crusade and - again, uniquely - enjoys Government connections at the very highest levels, able to influence directly the creation of new law (you can read all this - specifically CEOP's direct contributions - in freely available Parliamentary Reports, such as those released dealing with the recent 'cartoon porn' laws introduced in the UK and reported widely here on The Reg courtesy of Jon Ozimek who has done a sterling job of reporting this most recent travesty of justice). As such, CEOP is one of the most powerful - and deadly - branches of law enforcement in the UK, if not Europe, able to wreak havoc and absolute ruin on anyone unfortunate enough to fall under its baleful gaze.

    Reverend Jim's little sojourn to Washington might well have ended in abject failure for his much-vaunted 'panic button' but Jim will find many friends across the pond who share his passion for a particularly rough kind of justice. The USA, indeed, must seem like some kind of paradise compared to Britain when one considers the totally surreal measures currently being meted out to 'sex offenders' there; if you think things are getting even a little out of hand here in the UK, take some time to look up some of the cruelties of the US justice system when applied to anyone even suspected of looking at something 'indecent' on their computer. It really does beggar belief that such an allegedly 'civilized' society as the US could behave in such a wretchedly medieval way towards its own citizens, including it's children.

    Here in the UK there might be some hope that Mr Gamble could soon be asked to explain himself (and that would indeed be a first, since successive Home Secretarys have singularly failed to do so). The brave, determined people behind the 'Operation Ore' UK class action (due to reach the Courts very soon) claim to have strong evidence of a very grave miscarriage of justice. If British Law has even one good eye the Reverend (who led Op Ore) and his congregation should be squirming in their pews just about now.

    In the end it's reassuring to remember that every empire falls, every jumped-up little Napoleon eventually meets his Waterloo. One of life's little certainties, Jim.

  13. Harry Stottle

    Facebook Members Have The Solution In Their Own Hands

    If I were an active facebook member (which thank the lord I'm not sir) I would start a facebook campaign in which every member, at least once a day, pressed the panic button "accidentally" and flooded the CEOP twats with a manual DDoS, until they beg facebook to take the button off...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook Group

    Does someone want to start a facebook group with clear cohessive points as to why this button makes little sense. I'd join up straight away.

    CEOP need to focus on making a difference through education.

    1. Mike Cardwell

      The group

      http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113492878674477

      There are lots of pro panic button groups, so I just created this anti panic button group.

  15. Pablo

    Amazingly Patient

    The only good thing about putting a link in their security center is that now they can threaten to remove it if CEOP keep harassing them. Facebook has been amazingly patient with this idiot. If I would have told him to f*** off it a long time ago.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    CEOP

    Why wont CEOP just fuck off and die

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to ban facebook

    If it is such an issue why don't they put facebook on the banned list. Then millions of teenagers can spend time behind the bike sheds or getting pissed on cheap cider (ok maybe not so cheap now) and as a result millions of wasted hours could be spent more productively

  18. Craigness

    17?

    CEOP is using the death of a 17 year old to bully Facebook in this matter. CEOP's website "thinkuknow.co.uk" has sections for kids of 5-7, 1-10 and 11-16. It's no wonder 17 year olds are vulnerable, with no help directed at them.

    The CEOP main site has an "Information for..." section, with info for parents, young people, education professionals (do they mean teachers?) etc. There's no help there for paedophiles! That would be a good place to start.

  19. Armus Squelprom

    Jim Gamble = J Edgar Hoover

    Power-mad, skeletons in closet.

  20. jon 72

    Let's cut to the quick here..

    Filling out an online report is akin to sending the fire brigade a postcard..

    House Burning - Wish You Were Here

    It's a good idea but has several fundamental flaws that need to be addressed.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Oh Exploitable

    I already know one, shall we say "Anonymous" source who is just itching to see this panic button installed, so they can be as scary as possible as see how many times they can get it pressed.

    ..And I can just imagine what would happen when the /b/tards get a load of it.

    Anonymous because, well.. greenface icon request please.

  22. Number6

    Well done FB

    If they don't resist the call then at some point, every website will be required to have a panic button on it, just in case.

    It's not the government's responsibility, nor a private agency, but the parents'. Teach your children about the dangers of the internet, how to use it responsibly and encourage them to talk to you about how they use it.

  23. Ozzy

    If I may quote . . .

    Martin Luther-King: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    Wibble

    Come on guys, you are clearly missing the point here. Haven't you worked out yet that this is a "Magic Button (TM)"??

    It works completely different to any plain old button-on-website you have ever come across before. Pressing it instantaneously alerts everyone who needs to know (I've seen the code behind it - it's awesome!) and less than 60 seconds later the helicopters swoop out of the sky, pick up the miscreant and before you can say "Fuck off Jim you dangerous, lunatic prick!" they are hauled off for summary stringing up from lamposts (saves a bundle on lawyers fees you see).

    I for one love CEOP and would gladly sell my house and all my possessions to fund it ;-)

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