The official campaign to find Madeleine McCann has reacted to worrying news about online child safety, issuing a warning to parents of “young children”.
The Official Find Madeleine Campaign page on Facebook, of which Kate and Gerry McCann are directors, shared the post last week.
As well as issuing the warning, they also pointed their supporters to a news report containing further information, urging followers to “be careful”.
Madeleine McCann news: Facebook warning issued over online safety
The Find Madeleine Campaign shared a link to NBC News’ article about social network Pinterest.
It was claimed by the news network that “grown men on Pinterest” had been able to “openly create sex-themed image boards filled with pictures of little girls”.
As a result, Pinterest said that it has “dramatically” increased the number of human moderators on the site.
However, senators in the States are now demanding action, with a statement reading: “It should not have taken national media coverage of such graphic misuse targeting young children to prompt action.”
Pinterest’s new safety features now enable users to report boards and accounts for “nudity, pornography or sexualised content”. The site defines the latter as including “intentional misuse involving minors”.
One woman, whose young daughter’s gymnastics videos were allegedly saved to one such board, said she was “shocked and disgusted”.
Pinterest has since confirmed it has taken “immediate, broad, and aggressive action to deactivate thousands of bad actors and anyone engaging with content in inappropriate ways”.
‘Be careful’
Clearly troubled by the news, a Find Madeleine Campaign coordinator shared the report.
Reposting it to Facebook, they captioned the story with a warning: “Be careful when posting your children’s pictures online.”
The coordinator then went on to allege: “Pinterest’s algorithm is inadvertently curating images of young children for adults who go looking for them.”
While Kate and Gerry McCann are directors of the Find Madeleine Campaign, it was signed off “FM Campaign Coordinator”.
Parents of Madeleine McCann will search for ‘as long as it takes’
Comments on the post were disabled. However, earlier this week ED! reported that the Find Madeleine Facebook page had broken its silence following claims made by Polish woman Julia Wandelt.
A coordinator changed the page’s cover photo with a renewed pledge that they’ll search for missing Madeleine for “as long as it takes”.
Read more: DNA test update issued by ‘I am Madeleine McCann’ girl’s rep
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