Senior UK policeman Simon Bailey calls for social media boycott ‘to protect children’ from abuse
- Norfolk’s chief constable said fines don’t work but firms may be forced into action ‘when their brand is damaged’
- Bailey said he is concerned the spread of 4G and 5G networks worldwide could open up more opportunities for the sexual exploitation of children
A public boycott of social media may be the only way to force companies to protect children from abuse, the country’s leading child protection police officer has said.
Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on child protection, said tech companies had abdicated their duty to safeguard children and were only paying attention due to fear of reputational damage.
The senior officer, who is Norfolk’s chief constable, said he believed sanctions such as fines would be “little more than a drop in the ocean” to social media companies, but the government’s online harms white paper could be a “game changer” if it led to effective punitive measures.
Bailey suggested a boycott could be one way to hit big platforms, which he believes have the technology and funds to “pretty much eradicate the availability, the uploading, and the distribution of indecent imagery”.
Despite the growing problem, Bailey said he had seen nothing “that has given me the confidence that companies that are creating these platforms are taking their responsibilities seriously enough”.
“Ultimately I think the only thing they will genuinely respond to is when their brand is damaged,” he told the Press Association. “We have got to look at how we drive a conversation within our society that says do you know what, we are not going to use that any more, that system or that brand or that site because of what they are permitting to be hosted or what they are allowing to take place.”