Omegle: Children expose themselves on video chat site 

  • A BBC investigation into the increasingly popular live video chat website Omegle has found what appear to be prepubescent boys explicitly touching themselves in front of strangers 
  • Omegle links up random people for virtual video and text chats, and claims to be moderated – but has a reputation for unpredictable and shocking content 
  • Global child protection groups are increasingly concerned about predators using the site to gather self-generated child sexual abuse material 
  • The founder of the website, Leif K Brooks, told the BBC his site had increased moderation efforts in recent months
  • For the full story, select here 
  • We will be releasing a Safeguarding Alert imminently 

    Police warn of rise in sextortion in Aberdeen and Moray  

        • A warning has been issued by police following instances of ‘Sextortion’ in the North East of Scotland 
        • Sextortion usually involves people being deceived into taking off some or all of their clothes in front of their webcam, only to be told that they have been recorded. 
        • The criminals then issue threats that, unless money is paid, the video will be posted online or shown to the victim’s contacts 
        • PC Heather Nelson, who is a Crime Reduction Officer, stated that the consequences can go far beyond just embarrassment 
        • In extreme cases, victims have even taken their own lives 
        • She added: “Do not accept friendship requests from complete strangers, irrespective of ‘mutual friend’ status 
        • For the full story, select here

          Black and LGBT Edinburgh University students attacked in Zoom meeting 

          • A celebration of black and LGBT culture has been “hijacked” on Zoom 
          • The attackers shouted racist slurs, chanted homophobic slogans and played pornography during the University of Edinburgh event, on Sunday 
          • About 50 people were given a link to join but it was not password protected 
          • The university said it regarded “any incident of discrimination as a serious matter”
          • Zoom said it was “deeply upset” and had begun an investigation 
          • For the full story, select here 

             

            Google to roll out multiple updates for online education tools 

            • Google today introduced a suite of updates for its online education toolswhose adoption and further development have been accelerated by the pandemic, including Google Classroom, Google Meet and the next generation of G Suite for Education, now rebranded as Google Workspace for Education 
            • In total, Google is promising more than 50 new features across its education products, with a focus on meeting educators and admins’ needs 
            • During the COVID-19 pandemic, Google found that many educators had begun to use Classroom as the “hub” for their online learning activities 
            • Today, the service is used by over 150 million students, teachers and school admins, up from just 40 million last year. 
            • For the full story, select here 

            Abuse survivor calls for children conceived through rape to be given victim status 

            • One of the survivors of the Rotherham grooming scandal has asked the government to give children born from rape, legal “victim” status so they can receive specialist help and potentially prosecute their fathers 
            • Sammy Woodhouse – who became pregnant with her first son aged 14 after being groomed and raped – says that despite being recognised herself as a victim of sexual exploitation, there was no support for her son in dealing with how he had been conceived 
            • She has written to Victoria Atkins, the Safeguarding Minister, to ask for funding for charities to be trained and offer advice and therapeutic services to mothers and children conceived by rape 
            • She also wants children of rape to be defined as victims within the law 
            • For the full story, select here