Daily Safeguarding Update

40 years jail for South Korean chatroom sex abuse group leader

A South Korean court has sentenced the mastermind of one of the country’s biggest online sex abuse rings to 40 years in jail
Cho Ju-bin was found guilty of running a group that blackmailed girls into sharing sexual videos that were then posted in pay-to-view chatrooms
At least 10,000 people used the chatrooms, with some paying up to $1,200 (£1,000) for access
Some 74 people, including 16 underage girls, were exploited
“The accused has widely distributed sexually abusive content that he created by luring and threatening many victims,” the Seoul Central District Court said on Thursday
Cho’s criminal syndicate sold the videos it acquired through blackmail to secretive chatrooms on the Telegram app

TikTok has announced a new feature that will allow people with photosensitive epilepsy to skip videos that could trigger seizures
It comes a few months after it began labelling videos featuring effects such as flashing lights
The Skip All option, to be rolled out in the next few weeks, will allow users to set their profile to not show these videos
An epilepsy charity said it hoped other social-media sites would follow suit
Users who come across a photosensitive video will receive a notification inviting them to skip all similar videos in future
TikTok said it wanted to make the platform “accessible for everyone”.
“Given the visual nature of our platform, we’re beginning this work with a series of photosensitivity features,” it added

Ambitious plans to roll out gigabit-speed broadband to every home in Britain by 2025 have been rolled back in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review
Now the aim is to have a “minimum of 85% coverage” by that date
It will come as no surprise to industry watchers, who felt the target was unachievable
The budget for the plan remains the same – £5bn, although the figure for next year’s spend is much lower, with only £1.2bn of that £5bn will be made available up until 2024
The National Infrastructure Strategy document said it will “seek to accelerate roll-out further to get as close to 100% as possible”

A think tank has warned that no new funding will be available next year to provide catch-up support for pupils whose education has been disrupted as a result of Covid-19The Education Policy Institute (EPI) said “it is disappointing” that today’s government spending review does not outline any additional funding and says the adverse effects of Covid-19 on pupils’ education “are likely to continue long after next year”
Documents published by the Treasury on Wednesday show that £1.4 billion is available to schools this year for pupils’ catch-up and free school meals, but only £400 million is available next year
Natalie Perera, Executive Director of the EPI, said: “It is disappointing that no additional funding is available to continue to provide catch-up support for pupils who have had their education disrupted as a result of the pandemic”