Keith Vaz: big companies ‘need to accept their responsibility to monitor and intervene’ when explicit material appears online
Following the NSPCC warning of a ‘worrying link’ between child abuse images and the murder of five-year-old April Jones by Mark Bridger, Keith Vaz, chair of the Commons home affairs select committee said that ISPs, search engines and social media sites are too laid back.
The charity said: “Stopping people viewing images of child abuse is not about censorship of the internet – it’s about the law and protecting children”, adding that the April Jones murder case "has left a deep scar on the nation".
Speaking to the Guardian, Vaz said: "Internet service providers, search engines and social media sites are far too laid back about what takes place on their watch. Industry giants such as Google need to accept their responsibility to monitor and intervene.
"The committee has in the past recommended that the government establish a code of conduct with internet service providers to remove material which breaches acceptable behaviour standards. I am very disappointed that although the government said it would engage with the industry on this issue, we are yet to see any action resulting from this."
Charity and a UK self-regulatory body, the Internet Watch Foundation, stood up for the internet industry, describing it as ‘nimble’ when it came to tackling issues.
IWF spokeswoman Emma Lowther said: "The UK internet industry is extremely quick and nimble at tackling what is possibly the most horrendous images and videos available on the internet but there is always more to be done.
“Our research revealed 1.5 million adults have stumbled across child sexual abuse content on the internet - but last year we received just under 40,000 reports.
"Removing the images is by far the best way to prevent people from seeing them. It also prevents the victimisation of the abused children.”