Paedophiles are using secret Facebook groups to swap images, investigation finds
Paedophiles are using Facebook to share indecent images (Picture: Getty Images)
Paedophiles are using secret groups on Facebook to post and swap images of children, a BBC investigation has found.
The social network allows for members-only groups that are invisible to everyone except those invited to join. A BBC investigation found there were a number of secret groups created and run by men sexually attracted to children which included pornographic and highly suggestive images purporting to be of minors.
In at least one case a group was being administered by a convicted paedophile who is on the sex offenders’ register.
Many of the groups, the investigation found, even had names that clearly indicated their content. Secret groups cannot be found using the search facility and only members can see what content is inside them.

Paedophiles are using Facebook to swap images Credit: Getty Images
Anne Longfield said the site wasn’t doing enough to protect children (Picture: Getty Images)
The BBC investigation found a picture of a girl in a vest, aged 10 or 11, accompanied by the words ‘yum yum’ in one secret group called ‘cute teen schoolies’.
Facebook said that it did not breach ‘community standards’ and the image stayed.
Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, said Facebook was not doing enough to police the groups and protect children.
‘I’m shocked those don’t breach community standards, any parent or indeed child looking at those would know that they were not acceptable,’ she said.
‘I don’t think at the moment, given what we know about the vulnerability of so many children to predators, that they are doing enough.