Amber Rudd says tech companies can 'do much more' to stop child exploitation
1 min read
Amber Rudd has called on US tech giants to do more to stop the "exponential" growth of online child exploitation.
The Home Secretary is travelling to the US this week for meetings with government officials to discuss how to curb the rise in online abuse.
In a column for The Sun this morning, Ms Rudd said there had been a 700% rise in the number of indecent images flagged up by companies such as Facebook and Google.
She said they had a "moral duty" to go further in stamping out what she called a "horrendous scourge".
Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show this morning she doubled down on that challenge, saying: "We've seen the real growth of child sexual exploitation internationally, and we're going to make sure that we work with the Americans to take action against it. There's much more that the internet companies can do.
"They already do quite a lot, but the growth has been exponential and we need to make sure that they put their technical know how into addressing it.
"Particularly working with smaller platforms where children go to game online, to meet each other; there are paedophiles working there.
"We need to make sure the internet companies work with us, in partnership, to change this."
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