Blunt instruments to censor porn won’t work, writes Caroline West.

SINCE its beginnings, the internet has become an unrivaled source of entertainment and information for tens of millions of people the world over.

A pornographic website featuring dozens of Irish girls whose pictures were posted without their consent has been reported 24 times in less than a year to a hotline investigation service.

Fantasies involving rape, paedophilia, and misogynistic violence — the website hosting photographs stolen from the Facebook profiles of young Irish women is not just a porn site, but a forum where anonymous users share pictures and swap fictitious descriptions of the vile acts they would carry out on the women depicted.

Parents need to have “full and frank” discussions with their children about what they are posting online and need to make sure privacy settings are activated to control who views their information, an expert in online security has warned.

Facebook is to investigate how pictures posted to the social media network by Irish teenagers ended up on a pornographic website without their consent.

The National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) has renewed its call for an internet safety module to be included in the second-level curriculum after the discovery of Cork teens’ Facebook pictures on a porn website.