Britain to take down smugglers’ online services on Facebook

The UK government has said it will begin cracking down on people smugglers who advertise their services on Facebook to potential migrants.

According to various reports from the UK media, the government has identified over 500 social media pages, mostly on Facebook, used to attract clientele looking to irregularly migrate to Europe.

At the Salzburg Summit held on 19-20 September 2018, UK Prime Minister Theresa May said: “We must now match our pursuit of people smugglers and traffickers with a renewed effort to prevent immigration crime from occurring in the first place.”

“To achieve this, we must tackle the enabling environment – all those factors that make it far too easy for criminal networks to emerge and grow, putting migrants’ lives at such risk.” May added that the UK is ready to share its cyber-policing expertise with other European countries, saying that “online platforms have no respect for borders”.

People smuggling and human trafficking is big business globally. A 2018 Global Study On Smuggling Of Migrants released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that smugglers and human traffickers profited up to USD 7 billion in 2016 by smuggling and trafficking up to 2.5 million migrants. It added that social media platforms have inadvertently helped the criminals recruit their victims.

One reason for the increased reliance on social media is due to tougher policies that limit the physical working environment for these illegal activities. With about 1.5 billion users on Facebook and 900 million on its online messaging service Whatsapp, these platforms provide an opportunity to reach even more customers. Some have even reportedly offered discounts for children.

Aid agencies are now also calling on tech companies to protect social media users from people smugglers. Since 2017, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has urged social media companies to make things harder for people smugglers to use their platforms to lure vulnerable migrants.

In an interview with Newsweek in October 2018, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company was continually evaluating its processes for making the platform safer. The spokesperson said: “People smuggling is illegal and any ads, posts, pages or groups that coordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook. We work closely with law enforcement agencies around the world including Europol to identify, remove and report this illegal activity.”

TMP – 4/10/2018

Photo credit: Europa.eu Migrants promised a safe crossing by smugglers usually faces a different reality.