Mothers' group outraged after their Facebook campaign to expose paedophiles is removed from the internet

Their problem is, they reported the bad sites to the wrong people. i.e. the public instead of Facebook.

8-26-2010 United Kingdom:

Six mothers who set up a campaign group on Facebook to track down and expose online paedophiles have been given a warning and had their page removed from the internet.

Leanne Moss, 33, set up the Mommies on a Mission group after claiming she stumbled across Facebook profile pages featuring images of child abuse.

The mother-of-four said she created the campaign page to raise awareness and to ensure the offensive profiles were reported.

But the group, which attracted more than 300 people in two days, was later removed by Facebook, who sent Mrs Moss a message saying the content violated their terms of use.

Mrs Moss, from Hull, who sells baby clothes using Facebook, said: 'It's ridiculous. We're the ones being made to feel like we've done something wrong.'

'In our eyes, all we are trying to do is protect our children. The group had 500 members but then I received a messaged from Facebook saying it was going against the rules.

All we were doing was posting links of profiles which featured sick images.'

Group member Joanne Bell, 32, from Carlisle, claimed it didn't make sense that Mommies on a Mission was removed when what they considered to be 'sick' profiles featuring child abuse were still on the site.

'How can they close the group for having sick content when these profiles are still there?

If they are monitoring us so closely, why can't they monitor these people?'

The group aimed to prevent a repeat of the murder of Ashleigh Hall, 17, who was groomed online by killer Peter Chapman before she was lured to her death.

Chapman, a convicted sex offender, was jailed for a minimum of 35 years in March.
Ashleigh's mother Andrea said Facebook's decision to shut down Mommies on a Mission was 'shocking'.

'They are very quick to shut down people who are trying to do some good for a change.

'If these people can do something good and prevent paedophiles getting in touch with young people then I wish them luck.

'I agree about it taking Facebook too long to remove a profile. I've repeatedly reported people to Facebook that are still on there now, almost a year later.'

'Of all people, I know what it's like to lose a child to a paedophile, but you will never be able to find all the paedophiles on Facebook.'

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, an organisation of police and child protection specialists, said anyone seeing suspicious content on Facebook should install and use the ClickCeop application to report it.

The safety button has already been installed by more than 55,000 people.

A spokeswoman for Ceop said: 'We are very interested to know about any concerns that people have around an individual suspected of grooming or anything like that.

'That is why we work with Facebook on the ClickCeop app that enables people to report concerns.'

A spokeswoman for Facebook said: 'Just as the people who use Facebook create all the content for the site, they also manage and regulate it.'

'We provide them with the tools to report any users or content they think is inappropriate, through reporting links on every page.

'Facebook prioritises the most serious reports, acting on most within 24 hours.' ..Source.. DAILY MAIL REPORTER