[RichardCoulter]

It was brought to the attention of police that there were pictures of a 12 year old girl from the agd of 5 upwards being sexually abused circulating on the internet.

In order to try and trace her to stop the abuse, the police asked facebook to look for pictures of her on Facebook as parents often upload pictures of their children.

At first they claimed that it couldn't technically be done, the police said yes it can. They then refused on the grounds that it would breach privacy. In the end the police made them do it and the little girl was found & the offender dealt with (her mother had no idea that this had been happening.)

Now that various countries are trying to protect the vulnerable from inappropriate on line behaviour, companies are claiming that their protection is extremely important to them and taking measures to show this (eg Instagram can now alert parents to inappropriate searches.)

I think this shows that, left to their own devices, social media sites don't give a toss and would do anything to be uncooperative.