Social media sites failing to protect girls from harm at every stage, NSPCC says
Social media platforms are failing to protect women and girls from harm at every stage, according to new research from the NSPCC.
The children's charity created fake profiles of a teenage girl across different sites, and found it was exposed to grooming, harassment and abuse across various platforms.
The research said that many of the features used by platforms to encourage users to expand their online networks, as well as to be online and active for longer, were at the detriment of the user's safety.
The study said that it was often too easy for adult strangers to pick out girls online and send them unsolicited messages.
Alongside the report, the NSPCC has published polling carried out on its behalf by YouGov which found that 86% of UK adults believe tech companies are not doing enough to protect women and girls online.
The survey of just over 3,500 adults found that parents with daughters listed contact from strangers, online grooming, bullying and sexual abuse or harassment as their biggest concerns about their children being online.
More than half of the parents surveyed (52%) expressed concern over their daughter's online experiences.
Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC, said: 'Parents are absolutely right to be concerned about the risks their daughters' are being exposed to online, with this research making it crystal clear that tech companies are not doing nearly enough to create age-appropriate experiences for girls.
'We know both on and offline girls face disproportionate risks of harassment, sexual abuse, and exploitation. That's why it's so worrying that these platforms are fundamentally unsafe by design – employing features and dark patterns that are putting girls in potentially dangerous situations.
'There needs to be a complete overhaul of how these platforms are built. This requires tech companies and Ofcom to step up and address how poor design can lead to unsafe spaces for girls.
'At the same time Government must lay out in their upcoming Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy steps to help prevent child sexual offences and tackle the design failures of social media companies that put girls in harm's way.'
The children's charity said social media sites should introduce 'abusability studies' to identify risky features that included an analysis based on gender, as well as integrate screenshot capabilities into reporting tools, introduce 'cooling off' periods when two users first connect to restrict contact, and place stricter measures on non-trusted adults from being able to video-call younger users.
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms are required to carry out risk assessments to establish how and if their sites could pose a risk to children.
Firms which breach the new online safety rules, which also include duties to protect children from encountering harm on their sites, can be fined up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover, whichever is higher, and in the most serious cases face being blocked in the UK.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.
Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags. The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America's second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes. In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it's one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is 'out of control' and on the brink of total collapse. The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants. As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California. Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA. 'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.' As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news. The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump's deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California. But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel. Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed. In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, 'Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.' In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January. Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.' The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease. His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County. 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In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!' And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route. But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti. 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Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Social media giants can ‘get on' and tackle fraud cases, says City watchdog
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Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trump faces criticism of his broad mass deportation push from two different angles
The sister of a woman allegedly murdered by six noncitizens said President Donald Trump's administration is targeting the wrong people for deportation and is not doing enough to get the worst of the worst off U.S. streets, even as authorities embark on a massive deportation effort. Tiffany Thompson, whose sister Larisha Sharrell Thompson was shot and killed in South Carolina last month, said she was angered that while deportations have played a central role in Trump's administration, more hadn't been done to target those who were charged in the killing — particularly the alleged ringleader, who faced a previous charge before her sister was killed. 'It's frustrating that they're illegal and they committed this crime. They should have been deported, maybe this wouldn't have happened,' Thompson told NBC News in an interview. She added: 'I don't know where Trump is right now.' The notion that a family member of someone allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant would call Trump to action over his signature issue comes amid broader questions about how the president is executing his mass deportation policy. Though from a different point of view, Tiffany Thompson's anger mirrors the anxiety rippling through Los Angeles over Trump's deportation efforts there, culminating in protests and some violent clashes and driven by the belief that the administration is indiscriminately removing noncitizens instead of targeting removal of criminals in an attempt to laud a high number of arrests. Polling shows immigration remains Trump's strongest issue, though the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll conducted last week illustrated a gap: A 55% majority said they like the goals of Trump's deportation program, while 44% said they like how 'he is going about it.' Americans narrowly said they believe Trump is prioritizing dangerous criminals (53%) versus prioritizing nondangerous people (47%) for deportation. And to the extent there is sharp division over Trump's immigration policy, it's not over efforts to deport convicted criminals. More than 80% of Americans support deporting those who have committed violent crimes, according to the Pew Research Center data from late February and early March. 'What this administration is doing is going after low-hanging fruit: collateral arrests, stripping protections,' said Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of Immigration Hub, a national immigration policy group. Lopez derided Trump administration tactics, including stripping Temporary Protected Status from Venezuelans and agents making arrests outside immigration courthouse hearings. 'They are creating the chaos,' she added. 'They aren't going after violent criminals. They are creating undocumented people.' Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, pushed back on that characterization on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' on Monday, saying that the enforcement actions in Los Angeles last week stemmed from a criminal investigation targeting specific people as part of a larger alleged conspiracy. They were not, Homan said, a random immigration raid. 'I said from day one, Jan. 20, we will prioritize public safety threats and national security threats. However, we will enforce law, particularly — I may prioritize my family life over my work, doesn't mean I ignore my work,' Homan said. 'We're going to enforce immigration law. We've been honest about that from day one, especially in sanctuary cities. When we can't get the bad guy in the safety and security of a jail, they release them to the street. Well, we got to go to the street and find them.' Data shows that violent crimes committed by immigrants are rare when compared with the general population. 'We often will hear about a very high-profile event, and not to reduce the tragedy of it — obviously, a crime is still a crime, and it's incredibly painful when you know when people are affected by those sorts of things — but looking at numbers and statistically speaking, it's not as though a higher presence of immigrants creates a higher presence of crime,' said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration policy think tank. 'That's been pretty proven through various studies over the years.' But as the Trump administration has pointed to arrestees as 'rapists' and 'killers,' competing narratives have stacked up with examples like a child suffering from cancer ordered to self-deport, university students targeted for removal and advocacy groups sounding alarms over violations of human rights and due process. Some Trump supporters have spoken out about the impact of a dragnet detaining those here legally. An Argentinian couple from North Carolina, who said they had backed Trump, were apoplectic after their 31-year-old son, a green-card holder in the country since he was a toddler, was arrested and detained in Georgia. 'He didn't say he was going to do this, that he was going to go after people who have been here for a long time,' the mother, Debora Rey, said of Trump in an interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution. 'He said he was going to go after all the criminals who came illegally. ... We feel betrayed, tricked.' At the same time, noncitizens charged with violent crimes are still making headlines. Under President Joe Biden, Trump attacked such crimes as evidence of a broken system that required his election to fix. Now, he and Republicans hold up those incidents — including the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado — as evidence that deportations should be more widespread. Authorities announced they elevated their deportation efforts and lauded a record-breaking day of arrests last week. 'President Trump is working at record speed to clean up Joe Biden's Open Border Disaster that let countless unvetted illegal aliens pour into the United States and threaten the safety of American citizens,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a written statement. 'The President has closed the border and now he's deporting illegal aliens, especially violent criminals. The recent attack in Boulder just underscores why the President's work is so important. 'We're grateful the media is now admitting that illegal aliens pose a risk to the safety of the American people and look forward to the stories about why Joe Biden let so many violent criminals into the country in the first place,' Jackson continued. In the Larisha Thompson case, six people who do not have legal status, according to the Department of Homeland Security, were charged. They include 21-year-old Asael Aminadas Torres-Chirinos, who faces three firearms charges and, according to DHS, had previously been arrested on a domestic violence allegation. Lancaster County lawyer Doug Barfield said Chirinos' 2022 charge was still pending. He added that immigration authorities had placed detainers on all six people, which would prevent them from going free even if they posted bond. Tiffany Thompson said she 'wished they would have seen that,' referencing Chirinos' previous arrest and the fact that he was still in the country. She didn't specifically cast blame on any administration but remained angry that the suspects — including teens who were 13, 14 and 15 years old — were attempting to be released on bond. 'Would I like for Trump to get ahead of this? Yes,' she added. The pace of deportations has bothered the White House, and NBC News reported top Trump aide Stephen Miller berated and threatened to fire senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in May if they did not begin detaining 3,000 migrants a day. Miller also threatened to fire leaders of field offices posting the bottom 10% of arrest numbers monthly, NBC News reported. Yet, that's exactly the tactic that immigration experts say will do little to protect against national security. 'There's really no incentive for ICE to spend a bunch of resources investigating and tracking down people in the field. It's about convenience primarily, and public safety is a distant second,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian-aligned public policy think tank. 'The Laken Riley Act specifically says you should be prioritizing resources to go after people who have been arrested on violent or property offenses. So they supported that bill,' Bier said, referencing the law Trump signed in January, which requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants who are arrested or face charges, or who have been convicted of 'burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.' After signing the law, Trump said, 'That's why I'm here instead of somebody else. Actually, it's the biggest reason.' Bier said the argument after signing the law was, 'They said: 'This is going to prevent more Laken Rileys.' And then they have done nothing to implement it.' The administration and allies reject that assertion, saying they are arresting criminal noncitizens and are moving as quickly as possible to reverse the impacts of lax border policies under Biden. In March, DHS touted its success in deporting convicted criminals and those who had pending criminal charges. 'He is dealing with what Biden and Kamala Harris facilitated. ... He keeps going as fast as he can, trying to fix a million different issues,' said Nicole Kiprilov, the executive director of The American Border Story, a group that elevates 'the human stories of American citizens impacted by the border crisis.' 'These people now who are committing crimes under the Trump administration are people who were brought in by Biden,' Kiprilov said. 'They were not brought in by Trump.' Kiprilov noted that Trump has turned off the flow of illegal immigration by shutting down the southern border. In a written statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: 'Under Secretary Noem, we are delivering on President Trump's and the American people's mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make America safe. In the first 100 days, 75% of ICE arrests were criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges. The shocking story here is that instead of deporting many heinous criminals, the Biden Administration chose to RELEASE these known public safety threats into our communities instead of deporting them.' Currently, 56% of those in ICE detention have either been convicted of a crime or have pending criminal charges, according to ICE data. The remainder do not have criminal histories. This article was originally published on
