Facebook Launches New “Panic Button” To Protect Kids

July 12th, 2010 - 11:38 pm ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

Facebook July 12 (THAINDIAN NEWS) In a refreshingly new approach from Facebook toward safety, the social networking site has recently launched a new “panic button” to protect kids in the UK from sexual predators and stalkers. The button will take children who click it straight to an online protection site.

The UK’s ‘Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has announced that Facebook will be adding a button which will give young people direct access to the website for the CEOP.

Kids can add the button, or bookmark the site by marking the ‘ClickCEOP’ button so that it will appear on their homepage, which will allow them to have online safety help and a place where they can report any inappropriate behavior by those who are potential sexual predators and may be searching Facebook for young users whom the can try to lure in.

The new webpage from the CEOP will feature topics which will catch the interests of young people, such as celebrities, music, and help with tests, and then will link those pages to safety as well.

Facebook execs were against the idea at first, and rejected calls from the CEOP asking to add the “panic button” after the death of Ashleigh Hall, a seventeen year old girl who was led to her death when a British serial rapist led the teen to him by posing as a young boy last October. After vigilant efforts on the part of CEOP, however, Facebook relented and the button was added.

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