Pope Francis calls on tech giants to prevent children from accessing porn online

Pope Francis has called for Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and other tech companies to urgently take measures to remove child porn from the web and prevent children from accessing pornography online.

Francis made the comments at the conference 'Promoting Digital Child Dignity' at the Vatican on Thursday.

Addressing religious leaders and high-tech representatives, the Pope said that it's no longer acceptable to merely follow the law in monitoring online content, because technology is fast outpacing regulation. 

The Vatican has sought to raise awareness about protecting children online as part of its response to the Catholic Church's dreadful record with clergy sexual abuse.

He said tech and computer software companies should assume a moral responsibility to protect young people from what he said were the ruinous effects of pornography on their emotional and sexual development.

There is a need to ensure that investors and managers remain accountable, so that the good of minors and society is not sacrificed to profit, he said.

Francis was addressing participants at the conference 'Promoting Digital Child Dignity,' which follows on a 2017 conference hosted by the Jesuit university in Rome and a 2018 meeting in Abu Dhabi.