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Virgin Media and Virgin Mobile customers face the longest wait to speak to customer service operators by phone, the regulator Ofcom has found.

Virgin Media customers waited seven minutes and 40 seconds on average, while Virgin Mobile took six minutes and 44 seconds to answer calls in 2020.

EE had the shortest average wait time with one minute and 15 seconds, followed by TalkTalk.

Virgin Media said customer service was a “top priority”.

Overall, 52% of all UK broadband customers were happy with how their complaints were dealt with.

That compared with 57% of mobile users.

Virgin Media said it had been forced to change the set-up of its contact centres during the pandemic.

“We’re proud of how we rose to this challenge,” it said.

“However, we recognise there’s room for improvement, which is why we have already increased our investments in digital and customer service, including creating more than 1,000 customer care roles in the UK last year, and will be making further improvements later this year.”

Better deals
It is Ofcom’s fifth annual report exploring how well the major providers support customers and provide information about what they offer.

The regulator said while many companies were now offering better deals, customer service was still facing issues.

Other findings included:

Broadband and landline customers waited four minutes and nine seconds on average to speak to someone in 2020
Mobile customers waited two minutes and seven seconds
26% of broadband customers had “a reason to complain” about their provider or service
Only 3% of mobile customers were unhappy with their service
Most people were only without services for a maximum of two days due to faults
Soaring demand
Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s network and communications group director, said on the whole broadband and mobile companies had “adapted well” to soaring demand for connectivity during the pandemic.

“Some have struggled with customer service problems,” she added.

“We’re challenging them to act now, so the telecoms industry becomes the gold standard for customer service.”

Rocio Concha, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Which? said it was important for the sector to uphold the commitments they had made in 2019.

“In a time where being connected is more important than ever, providers need to take their commitments seriously and do more to meet consumers’ expectations – particularly on customer service, pricing and ease of changing contracts,” she said.

Donald Trump’s ban from Facebook and Instagram has been upheld by Facebook’s Oversight Board.

But it criticised the indefinite nature of the ban as beyond the scope of Facebook’s normal penalties.

It has ordered Facebook to review the decision and “justify a proportionate response” that is applied to everyone, including ordinary users.

The former president was banned from both sites in January following the Capitol Hill riots.

The Oversight Board said the initial decision to permanently suspend Mr Trump was “indeterminate and standardless”, and that the correct response should be “consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform”.

Facebook must respond within six months, it said.

At a press conference, co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt admitted: “We did not have an easy answer.”

She added that she felt Facebook would “appreciate the decision”.

“We are telling Facebook to go back and be more transparent about how it assesses these things. Treat all users the same and don’t give arbitrary penalties.”

In response, Facebook said it would “consider the board’s decision and determine an action that is clear and proportionate”.

The board also made a number of recommendations about how Facebook should improve its policies and the social network promised to “carefully review” these.

The Board was due to announce its decision last month but delayed the ruling in order to review more than 9,000 public responses to cases, it said.

In the meantime, Mr Trump, who is also banned from Twitter, launched a new website on Tuesday to update supporters with his thoughts.

Following the ruling, Mr Trump wrote that “what Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace”.

“Free speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the radical left lunatics are afraid of the truth,” he said, referring to himself as president.

“The people of our country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our electoral process,” he said.

The administration of Mr Trump’s successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, declined to comment on Facebook’s ruling on Wednesday.

But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it was President Biden’s view that “major platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation and misinformation”.

What did the Board say?
The ruling means that Mr Trump’s suspension remains in place for now.

The Oversight Board decided that Mr Trump had broken Facebook’s community standards, and upheld the ban.

But it is the “indefinite” part of the ban that it took issue with because that is not within its own rules.

“It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored,” it said in a statement.

Applying that type of ban to Mr Trump was not following any clear procedure, it said.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
The Board argued that Facebook had essentially issued “a vague, standardless penalty and then [referred] this case to the Board to resolve”.

It said doing so meant “Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities” – and sent the decision back to Facebook.

Co-chair Michael McConnell justified the timeframe saying that it was a decision “not to be rushed” and admitted that the firm may decide to throw it back to the Oversight Board yet again.

Setting up a “Supreme Court” to rule on tricky issues seemed like a smart move by Mark Zuckerberg. Whatever the Oversight Board decided, Facebook’s boss could say “not my fault, blame the judges”.

But that’s unlikely to wash here. There can be no more divisive issue than President Trump’s presence on a platform credited or blamed by many for his electoral success in 2016 and probably crucial if he decides to run again in 2024.

Now, the Oversight Board has thrown the hot potato right back into Mr Zuckerberg’s lap.

He and his team have been told to go away and have a long hard think about how they handle tricky cases like this one. They will have to decide the meaning of the term “newsworthy” and conduct a proper inquest into the platform’s role in the events of 6 January.

And at the end of it all, Facebook will still have to decide what to do about Donald Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg could be forgiven for wondering whether setting up this body was such a good idea after all – and why he is paying the generous salaries of the board’s members.

Presentational grey line
What is the Oversight Board?
Often referred to as “Facebook’s Supreme Court”, it was set up to rule on difficult or controversial moderation decisions made by Facebook.

It was established by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg but operates as an independent entity, although its wages and other costs are covered by Facebook. It is made up of journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics.

Facebook faces delay over Trump ban decision
Facebook Oversight Board reveals its first cases
The committee has already ruled on nine cases including a comment that seemed derogatory to Muslims. The post from a user in Myanmar, removed for breaking hate-speech rules, was found by the board not to be Islamophobic when taken in context.

What happened to Trump’s account?
Following the Capitol Hill riots on 6 January, Facebook announced it was banning Mr Trump for breaking its “glorification of violence” rules.

Hundreds of his supporters entered the complex as the US Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden’s victory in last year’s presidential election.

Mr Trump was acquitted of a charge of inciting insurrection at the US Capitol in his second impeachment trial in February, after being accused of encouraging the violence in which five people lost their lives.

The social network had originally imposed a 24-hour ban after the attack which was then extended “indefinitely”.

Mr Zuckerberg announced that the risks of allowing Mr Trump to post were “simply too great”.

The former president has also been banned from Twitter and YouTube.

Apple has added extra paid-for advertisements to its App Store, a week after its new operating system limited tracking for ads from other companies.

The new ad space lets app-makers advertise on the App Store search tab, rather than just in the search results.

Last week’s release of iOS 14.5 placed strict limits on tracking on iPhones – including tracking for advertising.

And Facebook fiercely opposed the change, warning it would favour Apple’s own advertising system.

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature requires apps on iPhones to ask for permission to track the user for advertising.

During a long-running row between the two, Facebook had warned Apple’s “privacy” features would hurt advertisers – including app makers – and benefit Apple.

“Apple’s policies leave very limited options for app developers to find customers through effective advertising – and, conveniently, Apple’s own advertising products is one of them,” Facebook had said.

‘Increased demand’
Previously, Apple sold adverts to appear at the top of search results only. The new slot effectively doubles the advertising space for sale.

Enders Analysis senior media analyst Jamie MacEwan said: “The timing makes sense.

“Apple probably anticipates increased demand for exposure on the App Store. That’s because Apple’s iOS privacy changes have made other options less attractive.”

Facebook v Apple: The ad tracking row heats up
Google promises to drop personalised ad tracking
Ad campaigns on other sites had less reliable measurements of success, he said.

And app developers ran ads only if they were sure the cost of winning new customers was lower than the amount they would spend on the app.

“As its ads business grows, Apple will have to make sure its execution on consent and privacy is impeccable” to avoid accusations of putting itself first, Mr MacEwan added.

Some reports suggest Apple’s ad sales could be worth more than $2bn and are growing.

Apple has not responded to a request for comment on the timing of the new advertising product launch.

Legal battle
The new feature also comes as internal Apple emails reveal a tension in the company over its advertising business.

The emails, between Apple employees in 2015, discussed the possibility of adding adverts to the App Store, after Google launched them for its own Android store.

The documents emerged as part of Apple’s continuing legal battle with Epic Games and were first reported on by Apple news site 9to5Mac.

Apple anti-fraud unit head Eric Friedman was discussing the idea of ads with engineer David Neumann, the documents reveal, and how they could work better for app discovery than a “top apps” chart.

“The dev[eloper]s would love it,” Mr Friedman wrote.

“The problem is that [Apple chief executive Tim Cook] is telling the world that we make great products without monetising users.

“Ads would be weirdly at odds with that.”

Mr Cook has long criticised big technology companies for monetising users’ data, whereas Apple makes most of its money through selling high-end devices.

Apple ended up introducing its first App Store ads in mid-2016, more than a year after those emails.

But the number of ads it displays remains low compared with rival Google Play, or most social networks.

A US judge has refused to dismiss Amazon’s allegations that political interference cost the company a $10bn (£7bn) Pentagon contract.

The 10-year JEDI contract is aimed at making the US defence department more technologically agile.

Amazon had been considered the favourite to win. However, the contract was eventually awarded to Microsoft.

The tech giant alleges Mr Trump’s dislike of its founder Jeff Bezos influenced the final decision.

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The ruling on Wednesday means that Mr Trump could be among those Amazon asks to appear in court as part of any future proceedings.

“The record of improper influence by former President Trump is disturbing, and we are pleased the Court will review the remarkable impact it had on the JEDI contract award,” an Amazon spokesman said in a statement.

“AWS continues to be the superior technical choice, the less expensive choice, and would provide the best value to the DOD and the American taxpayer.”

However, a spokesman for Microsoft insisted that the new ruling “changes little”.

“Not once, but twice, professional procurement staff at the DoD chose Microsoft after a thorough review. Many other large and sophisticated customers make the same choice every week.

“We’ve continued for more than a year to do the internal work necessary to move forward on JEDI quickly, and we continue to work with DoD, as we have for more than 40 years, on mission-critical initiatives.”

Four companies had initially been in the running for the deal when the process was launched in 2017.

IBM was eliminated, as was Oracle, which lodged an unsuccessful legal challenge alleging conflict of interest stemming from Amazon’s hiring of two former defence department employees. Both were said to have been involved in the JEDI selection process.

Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department has said its computer network has been breached in a targeted cyber-attack, US media report.

A ransomware group called Babuk is reportedly threatening to release sensitive data on police informants if it is not contacted within three days.

The FBI is investigating the extent of the breach, US media reported, citing the Washington DC police department.

Ransomware is used to scramble computer networks and steal information.

Attackers target companies or organisations and can lock their systems, then demand large sums of money in return for ending the hack.

What is ransomware?
On Monday, Washington DC’s police department said in a statement that it was “aware of unauthorised access on our server”, AP news agency reported.

“While we determine the full impact and continue to review activity, we have engaged the FBI to fully investigate this matter,” the statement added, without providing further details of the reported breach.

It is not clear if attackers managed to lock police out of their systems during the breach.

Babuk, a Russian-speaking ransomware group that emerged earlier this year, said it had downloaded “a sufficient amount of information” from the police department’s internal networks, AP reports.

Screenshots said to have been posted by the group on the dark web and shared on social media appeared to suggest it had gained access to information on criminal gang activity and police intelligence reports.

The head of UK-based cyber-security consultancy Bridewell Consulting, James Smith, said a risk remained for companies and organisations even if a ransom was paid.

“With these types of attacks, the data has probably been stolen already, before it was encrypted, and the likelihood that the data will be sold or stored by the hacker is great,” he said in a statement to the BBC.

Earlier this month, Babuk reportedly targeted the Houston Rockets basketball team with ransomware and claimed to have accessed documents including player contracts and financial data.

A spokeswoman for the Houston Rockets, Tracey Hughes, said that while the group had accessed some information, it failed to install its ransomware because of a security system in place.

Last week, a Russian man in the US pleaded guilty to plotting to extort money from the electric car company Tesla. He planned to use ransomware to steal company secrets for extortion, prosecutors said.

According to media reports, US government agencies have been targeted 26 times so far this year.

Apple has announced its new iOS 14.5 update for the iPhone and iPad.

The most newsy feature is its new App Tracking Transparency function – which means users will have to “opt in” if they want their online activity tracked by companies. Here are the things that caught our eye.

Unlocking an iPhone wearing a mask
Apple’s new operating system will allow you to unlock your phone whilst wearing a mask – with a gigantic catch.

Apple’s facial recognition doesn’t generally work when users are wearing a mask. Apple’s work-around involves you also owning an Apple Watch.

Apple said: “With Apple Watch on the wrist, unlocked, and in close proximity to iPhone, users can simply glance at their iPhone and they will receive haptic feedback from Apple Watch, indicating their iPhone has been unlocked.”

For anyone who doesn’t own an Apple Watch, as well as an iPhone, this feature won’t work.

App Tracking Transparency
The new update will mean a prompt will flash up when you want to download an app – asking for your permission for the app to track your online activity.

That data is currently used to create highly targeted ads based on your online behaviour by companies like Facebook.

Facebook has publically lobbied against the new change. The less Facebook knows about you, the less money it can charge for adverts.

Apple’s motives for the move have been questioned. If app developers can’t make as much through advertising, they might be more inclined to charge for services – and Apple makes money from these payments.

You can read more about this update here.

Like millions of iPhone users I downloaded iOS 14.5 last night and waited to find out what Apple’s brave new world of freedom from tracking looked like.

But nothing happened. There were no alerts from the hundreds of apps I have installed, asking me to agree to tracking. I tried downloading some new apps, but again: nothing, nada, zilch.

Buried in the privacy section of the phone’s settings is a switch labelled “Allow Apps to Request to Track” which was toggled on. Underneath, just one app was listed – a streaming service which I think I updated last night.

It seems that even if that is switched on, tracking stays off until the apps themselves push out a request screen inviting you to accept it.

Facebook says it is in the process of pushing out its screen – preceded by another one, explaining why tracking is a good thing and has helped to keep many small businesses afloat.

But a huge system of data collection, which sees app users tracked wherever they go, has been switched off for all who download the update.

What’s not clear is how much of it will be switched on again – by users, or even by the developers themselves. Many may decide that this kind of tracking has had its day, and they need to find a new model for advertising.

2px presentational grey line
New Emojis
Apple has introduced several new emojis in its latest update.

For example, people will be able to select different skin tones for the “couple kissing” emoji and “couple with heart” emoji.

Apple said that “Additional emoji include characters for face exhaling, face with spiral eyes, face in clouds, hearts on fire, mending heart, and woman with a beard, among others.”

Siri
Apple says Siri, its voice-controlled assistant, is becoming more diverse.

“Siri no longer has a default voice, allowing users to choose the voice that speaks to them when they first set up their device,” says Apple.

“In English, users can now select more diverse voice options. These new Siri voices use Neural Text to Speech technology for an incredibly natural sound,” says Apple.

Apple says these updates represent longstanding commitments to diversity and inclusion.

However many of Apple’s devices are made in China, where Apple has received criticism for not being more vocal about the government’s treatment of Uyghurs.

Apple’s critics say that the company should be consistent in its messaging on diversity – both at home and abroad.

AirTags
Apple’s new operating system will work with the newly launched “AirTags”.

The small disc can be attached to things like your keys or wallet. If you lose them, you’ll be able to track them with the Find My app.

Premier League, English Football League and Women’s Super League clubs will join in a four-day boycott of social media platforms in an effort to combat abuse and discrimination.

The boycott will start on 30 April.

The Football Association, as well as league bodies and other organisations, including anti-discrimination charity Kick it Out, will also be involved.

“This boycott signifies our collective anger,” said Kick it Out’s chairman Sanjay Bhandari.

“Social media is now sadly a regular vessel for toxic abuse.

“By removing ourselves from the platforms, we are making a symbolic gesture to those with power. We need you to act. We need you to create change.

“We need social media companies to make their platforms a hostile environment for trolls rather than for the football family.”

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Sheffield United’s David McGoldrick, who was racially abused last year, welcomed the move, saying: “It is about time. What has gone off on social media, it has happened to me.

“It has happened to many players. Something needs to happen, it is too easily to get racially abused on there.”

Speaking to Sky Sports on Saturday night after scoring in his side’s 1-0 win over Brighton, the striker added: “The Super League got cut off in 48 hours, why is racism on the back foot? It is bigger in my eyes.”

Brighton forward Neal Maupay has also been the subject of online abuse and he told Sky Sports the boycott was a “very good” move.

“The players get a lot of abuse online and we need to fight it. It’s a good way to do it. It’s good that we are in this together,” the Frenchman said.

The Football Supporters’ Association, League Managers’ Association, Women in Football, Women’s Championship and its clubs as well as refereeing body Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) have also committed to the boycott of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The move will come three weeks after Swansea City turned off their social media accounts for a week to make a stand against abuse following a number of their players being targeted.

Championship rivals Birmingham City and Scottish champions Rangers followed Swansea’s lead in announcing a boycott of social media.

Former Arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry removed himself from all social media in March because of racism and bullying across platforms.

In an interview with BBC’s Newsnight programme, the 43-year-old said “enough was enough” and that he had to make a stand against racism on social media.

Earlier in April, Liverpool said racist abuse on social media “cannot be allowed to continue” after Trent Alexander-Arnold, Naby Keita and Sadio Mane were targeted in April.

A joint statement from English football’s governing bodies said the boycott is a way “to emphasise that social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate”, while also “highlighting the importance of educating people”.

“Boycott action from football in isolation will, of course, not eradicate the scourge of online discriminatory abuse, but it will demonstrate that the game is willing to take voluntary and proactive steps in this continued fight,” the statement continued.

The FA’s director of equality and diversity Edleen John said “English football will not tolerate discrimination in any form”.

“We are calling on organisations and individuals across the game to join us in a temporary boycott of these social media platforms, to show solidarity and unite in the message,” she said.

“Social media companies need to be held accountable if they continue to fall short of their moral and social responsibilities to address this endemic problem.”

The UK government has previously threatened social media companies with “large fines” which could amount to “billions of pounds” if they fail to tackle abuse on their platforms.

Facebook said in February that tougher measures would be taken to tackle the issue.

Last week, Instagram – which is owned by Facebook – announced a tool to enable users to automatically filter out abusive messages from those they do not follow on the platform.
The UK government has previously threatened social media companies with “large fines” which could amount to “billions of pounds” if they fail to tackle abuse on their platforms.

Facebook said in February that tougher measures would be taken to tackle the issue.

Capitol riot: Man accused after Bumble dating app boastA man has been accused of taking part in the US Capitol riots after allegedly boasting about it on a dating app.

Robert Chapman, from New York, told a user he matched with on the dating app Bumble “I did storm the Capitol”, FBI court filings say.

They replied “we are not a match”, and shared a screenshot of the exchange with authorities.

Mr Chapman was arrested and charged in New York on Thursday, media reports say.

According to the court filings, Mr Chapman, from the town of Carmel in New York State, told his Bumble match: “I did storm the Capitol… I made it all the way into Statuary Hall!”

The FBI says police body-camera footage captures Mr Chapman in the Statuary Hall during the 6 January riots at the Capitol building in Washington DC.

A post on Mr Chapman’s public Facebook account, using the alias “Robert Erick”, said he was leaving New York City the day before the riot, the FBI said.

The next day, the account posted a photo showing him posing within the Capitol, captioned “INSIDE THE CRAPITOL!!!”.

Mr Chapman was arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct on restricted government property, according to NBC New York.

He had previously been arrested in New York in 2017, according to New York State Police.

The US justice department has charged more than 400 people with participation in the 6 January attack.

Federal prosecutors expect to charge at least 100 more people for taking part in the riots.

Tesla chief Elon Musk has agreed with Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, who has said that bitcoin “incentivises” renewable energy, despite experts warning otherwise.

The cyrptocurrency’s carbon footprint is as large of some of the world’s biggest cities, studies suggest.

But Mr Dorsey claims that could change if bitcoin miners worked hand-in-hand with renewable energy firms.

One expert said it was a “cynical attempt to greenwash” bitcoin.

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China, where more than two-thirds of power is from coal, accounts for more than 75% of bitcoin mining around the world.

The mining process to generate new bitcoin involves solving complex mathematical equations, which requires large amounts of computing power.

New sets of transactions are added to bitcoin’s blockchain (the ledger that records the cryptocurrency’s transactions) every 10 minutes by miners from around the world.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Mr Dorsey said that “bitcoin incentivises renewable energy”, to which Mr Musk replied “True”.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
The tweet comes soon after the release of a White Paper from Mr Dorsey’s digital payment services firm Square, and global asset management business ARK Invest.

Entitled “Bitcoin as key to an abundant, clean energy future”, the paper argues that “bitcoin miners are unique energy buyers”, because they offer flexibility, pay in a cryptocurrency, and can be based anywhere with an internet connection.

“By combining miners with renewables and storage projects, we believe it could improve the returns for project investors and developers, moving more solar and wind projects into profitable territory,” it said.

Author and bitcoin critic David Gerard described the paper as a “cynical exercise in bitcoin greenwashing”.

“The reality is: bitcoin runs on coal,” he told the BBC.

He gave the example of how an accident at a coal mine in Xinjiang meant it had to temporarily close, causing power cuts across the area and crippling the ability to mine new bitcoins.

“This slowed the blockchain down considerably… and coincided with the recent bitcoin price drop,” he said.

“Bitcoin mining is so ghastly and egregious that the number one job of bitcoin promoters is to make excuses for it – any excuse at all.”

China v Iceland
One bitcoin is currently worth $53,000 (£38,000) and the price hike has led to a surge in demand for new coins.

A recent study suggested that the amount of bitcoin mining happening in China could threaten the country’s emission reductions targets.

Meanwhile, analysis by the University of Cambridge suggests the bitcoin network uses more than 121 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, which would rank it in the top 30 electricity consumers worldwide if it was a country.

But there are some cryptocurrency miners based in countries such as Iceland and Norway, where most energy production is almost 100% renewable, via hydro-electricity and geothermal energy.

Writing in Medium, bitcoin expert Phil Geiger pointed out that “bitcoin mining rewards the most energy efficient miners with the most profit”.

“Mining is about maximising the number of hashes (computations) per kW of electricity,” he wrote.

“Currently, the most efficient way to generate the highest hashes/k is through the use of solar energy and hydro-electric, because those are the cheapest ways to produce electricity.”

TikTok is banning users who are posting pornographic and violent videos as their profile pictures to circumvent moderation, in a unique viral trend.

BBC News alerted the app to the “Don’t search this up,” craze, which has accumulated nearly 50 million views.

TikTok has also banned the hashtags used to promote the offending profiles and is deleting the videos.

Users say the trend is encouraging pranksters to post the most offensive or disgusting material they can find.

BBC News has seen clips of hardcore pornography shared as profile pictures on the app, as well as an Islamic State group video of the murder of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh, burned to death in a cage in 2015.

‘Especially worrying’
Tom, a teenager from Germany, whose surname we have agreed not to use, first contacted BBC News about the trend.

He said: “I’ve seen gore and hardcore porn and I’m really concerned about this because so many kids use TikTok.

“I find it especially worrying that there are posts with millions of views specifically pointing out these profiles, yet it takes ages for TikTok to act.”

Tom added he had reported multiple users to the app for posting the offensive profile-picture videos.

On the platform users can put videos as their profile pictures, rather than a still image.

Videos about the trend are being posted in English and Spanish languages on the app.

The offending accounts are often named with a random jumble of letters and words and have no actual TikTok videos uploaded to them apart from inside the profile box.

Some of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers waiting for the profile picture to be changed to something shocking.

Regular users are able to find these accounts by watching otherwise mundane TikTok videos advertising usernames people should “search up” to find the most shocking clips.

And these videos are being recommended by the TikTok algorithm on the app’s main For You Page.

Experts say the trend is unique and highlights an unknown vulnerability in TikTok.

“TikTok has a rather positive reputation when it comes to trust and safety so I would not fault them for not having moderation policies and tools for a toxic phenomenon they were not aware of,” Roi Carthy, from social-media moderation company L1ght, said.

“Clearly TikTok is working to stop this trend – but for users, as always, vigilance is key.

“TikTok fans should be conscious of the risks on the platform and parents should make an effort to learn what new apps their children are using, along with the content and human dynamics they are exposed to.”

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TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing apps, with an estimated 700 million monthly active users around the world.

A spokesman for the company said: “We have permanently banned accounts that attempted to circumvent our rules via their profile photo and we have disabled hashtags including #dontsearchthisup.

“Our safety team is continuing their analysis and we will continue to take all necessary steps to keep our community safe.”

Disabling a hashtag meant the term could not be found in search or created again, TikTok added.

Its moderation teams are also understood to be analysing and removing similar copycat terms being used for the trend.

BBC News tried to speak to one user who posted an explicit video to their profile but did not receive a response.