My response to a Facebook petition calling  upon Facebook to implement more effective child protection policies.

"The cause is good but reporting people directly who I think are doing something wrong is more powerful and also taking personal responsibility . Most abusers know a person or persons who knows what they are doing  but does nothing about it . This petition does nothing to encourage them to report and in turn is just another well meaning step that keeps in place the situation based social constraints that keep the victims of abusers and those that know about it silent. In other words in my view dealing  with child pornography is at the same level that womens rights were at in the early 70s when if a women was getting violently abused, lots of people knew about it but did little if anything because it wasn't in the culture to report such things as it is now .

I agree with a friend in York who said many years ago that victims and those who know the victims should speak out and report such things if they come across them. Its what I do and is taking responsibility not just for what I do but even more importantly for what I see being done . All this stuff is a very vexed question because I don't want an an  old East Germany style society where Stasi like individuals report everything  but neither do I want a totally free one where child abusers can do what they like .

Very vexed issue this : the way people  respond to child abuse when they come across it in their homes or in wider society. It seems men are most likely do abuse children but women are most likely to do nothing when they know it is going on . That is a challenging view because there is plenty of evidence for the former and not much for the latter because in my view societies globally don't treat children very well and women are not taken seriously when they  say anything and they exist in a social situation where they are likely to form the judgment that the abuse is bad but fear the consequences of reporting it ."