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Facebook ordered to remove sex offender monitoring page

Facebook was given 72 hours to take down the original page which contained a photo and comments about a convicted sex offender.

A CONVICTED SEX offender has won a High Court order in Northern Ireland to have a Facebook page set up to monitor paedophiles removed.

Yesterday a judge ruled that the page risked infringing the human rights of the man who cannot be identified.

Facebook was given 72 hours to take down the original ‘Keeping our kids safe from predators’ page which the judge ruled contained content that amounted to prima facie harassment of the man.

The man had previously been given a six-year jail sentence for a string of child sex offences committed more than 20 years ago.

Judge Bernard McCloskey said: “Society has dealt with the plaintiff in accordance with the rule of law.

“He has been punished by incarceration and he is subject to substantial daily restrictions on his lifestyle.”

In a statement to TheJournal.ie today, a spokesperson for Facebook said:

Facebook respects local laws. Consistent with the court order, the page in question is currently unavailable. We will be studying the text of the order before deciding on next steps.

The page had been taken down, but two with similar names then appeared yesterday afternoon.

At the time of publishing a page titled ‘Keeping our kids safe from predators” dating back to August was still live on Facebook but it is unclear whether or not this was the original page.

Facebook is understood to have removed the man’s photo and comments made about him but his legal team insisted that the page should be shut down.

- Additional reporting from AFP.

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