According to the BBC, The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has claimed that Twitter is lagging behind its social networking counterparts in terms of methods to prevent child abuse.

The organisation said it has reason to believe that paedophiles are using the platform to discuss child abuse and share links to web pages containing child pornography.

Twitter maintained that it responds to reports of child abuse quite seriously and has even provided users with a means to flag content which violates its policies.

Mark Williams-Thomas, a child protection expert, claims that Twitter takes a long time to block users whose posts have been flagged by other users. He asked Twitter to increase vigilance and work towards child abuse on its platform.

"There is always going to be a problem with social networking sites, because where there is an opportunity offenders will seek that out," said Williams-Thomas.

"Clearly what Twitter needs to do is to take responsibility for its users. And when they identify there is somebody promoting child abuse material, swapping it or even discussing it the site must come down straight away," he added.