Facebook under fire for baby dunking video

Facebook has been condemned for allowing a video of “a terrified, sobbing baby being constantly immersed in a bucket of water” by a “callous” adult to remain on the social media site.

The video, which shows the naked newborn being flung around by its head, was eventually removed last night following the intervention of child protection groups here and in the UK.

In the video, the baby screams loudly while a woman swings it around by its limbs before shaking it back and forward using its cheeks.

Britain’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children expressed concerns about the “disturbing” video on Facebook in a letter to the UK government, and has called for social networking sites to be held to account for their content.

Facebook initially responded by saying that it believes that raising awareness of the video may help to identify those involved. It has a policy whereby it allows discussion of sensitive issues as long as it does not promote them.

The NSPCC’s chief executive, Peter Wanless, said it is time for “the light to be shone on the responsibilities of social media companies”, adding that it is an area where progress has been “extremely slow”.

In a statement earlier yesterday, before the video was removed, Facebook said: “Like others, we find the behaviour in this video upsetting and disturbing. In cases like these, we face a difficult choice: Balancing people’s desire to raise awareness of behaviour like this against the disturbing nature of the video. In this case, we are removing any reported instances of the video from Facebook that are shared, supporting or encouraging this behaviour.

“In cases where people are raising awareness or condemning the practice, we are marking reported videos as disturbing, which means they have a warning screen and are accessible only to people over the age of 18.”

Aoife Griffin, advocacy manager with the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said the video clearly shows a baby in distress. “The baby depicted in the video has rights and we would encourage Facebook to remove the video from its site on behalf of the child concerned immediately,” she said. “This is a human rights and child protection issue and Facebook has a moral obligation to protect children.”

Mr Wanless said the society has received complaints in recent weeks about other images posted on Facebook which apparently showed the blanket-covered corpse of a baby lying in a pool of blood and a woman hitting a boy with a stick and kicking him. Referring to the video, he wrote: “We are obviously extremely concerned for the welfare of the infant and are urging Facebook to offer every co-operation with the authorities to try and track down this callous individual and protect the baby.

“The NSPCC believes we have now reached the long-overdue point where it is time for social networking sites to be held to account for the content on their sites and pay more attention to their safeguarding duties to protect children and young people, whether they are viewing the content or appearing in it.”

Simon Milner, Facebook director of policy, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Our judgement is that when this issue is being shared to draw attention to it and condemn what is happening, and ideally to try and help this child and rescue the child, then yes, there is a place for it on Facebook.

“If it was being shared to praise it or to make fun of it, absolutely not, and we will take it down. Our response has been yes, it does not breach our terms, but it is a disturbing and distressing video and therefore it is right that we put up a warning.”