Facebook has paid compensation to a 14-year-old Irish girl in a landmark legal action after naked photographs of her were posted online

Lawyers acting on behalf of the girl, from Northern Ireland, launched High Court proceedings after her photo was allegedly posted on a so-called shame page on Facebook several times between November 2014 and January 2016.

On Tuesday, representatives for the victim and Facebook agreed to a confidential out-of-court settlement, potentially opening the floodgates to thousands of similar cases.

Lawyer Pearse MacDermott, representing the girl, said: ‘Had these images been put in a newspaper or on the TV there would be serious repercussions and those same repercussions should also apply to whatever platform is used in the social media world.

‘The case moves the goal posts in the sense that Facebook always said it was up to the individual user to be responsible, not them.

‘It now puts the onus on the provider to look at how they respond to indecent, abusive and other such images put on their platform.

Whenever an image is put up that is clearly objectionable they should be able to stop that ever going up again. They should use the technology they have to be a responsible provider and remove the offensive post.’

It comes days after the Children’s Commissioner warned parents should think twice before allowing their children to use ‘addictive’ social media.

Anne Longfield published a major report warning youngsters are becoming dependent on social media for their sense of self-worth.

She said social media firms were exposing children to major emotional risks, with some starting secondary school ill-equipped to cope with the avalanche of pressure they faced online.
media sites should take ‘moral and social responsibility’.

Facebook bans explicit images, and revenge porn can result in a prison sentence of up to two years in the UK. But it is still a major problem for the social network.

Last month a former Facebook boss claimed the social network’s ‘dopamine driven feedback loops’ were ‘ripping apart the social fabric’. Its ex-president, Sean Parker, said: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.’

Yesterday, Mr MacDermott, from McCann and McCann Solicitors, the case had had a ‘detrimental effect’ on the victim’s mental health. He suggested social 

‘I think there is a need to look at how social media organisations operate their systems and how they operate the material that comes onto their site,’ he said.