Facebook considers sueing the Mail, but shouldn't kids be better protected anyway?

Facebook have threatened to sue the Daily mail over potentially libellous claims in a story published earlier on in the week.

The article entitled "I posed as a girl of 14 online. What followed will sicken you" is the headline you can currently read on the website, but the title once contained Facebook which can still be seen in URLs and searches. However, the site that was used has been only indentified by not being Facebook.

The scare mongering article, written by ex detective Mark Williams-Thomas, outlines that when he posed as a 14 year old girl online he was approached within seconds by older men who wanted to perform a sex act in front of them.

With the tragic death of a teenage girl who was murdered by a deeply disturbed individual at the forefront of most people’s minds this week, it is no wonder that parents and the authorities are worried about the impact social networking can have in the increase of these crimes.

This is why Facebook want the site named, so that appropriate security measures are taken to stop crimes as barbaric as those that have recently happened from happening again. The author of the article, however, has different plans. He claims that by releasing the information it will only cause panic and create a stream of perverse offenders to the site.

I believe Facebook have every right to be angry for something that wasn’t anything to do with them. The name of Facebook being added to the article was probably by a middle aged news editor who does not fully understand social networking and as they had heard of that site, they added it. Of course their reputation has now taken a battering in middle England, by those who also do not fully understand social networking.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo etc were never meant to be as big a phenomenon as they are when they were created. Facebook was designed for college students in America to keep up to date with each other on assignments and activities. In fact, even when the site started becoming popular in the UK, it was still only university students who could use it because you had to select your university as your network.

However, the increase in use and invariable popularity has seen 23 million people in the UK have an account. Because of this Facebook’s security controls have been tightened. I have held an account for about 5 years and only accept fiend requests from people I know and have never had any problems at all. Not one sick message or comment. Nothing. A couple of people I know have had pervy comments, but they’re the ones who insist on putting up pictures of themselves falling out of their clothes.

I can’t believe for a second that this guy who wrote for the mail joined Facebook, set up a profile and a picture, added information and found some friends and innocently ambled along on the site until some bag bad nasty man posed as a teenager. That’s why I KNOW it couldn’t have been Facebook. As far as I was aware you had to be 18 to use Facebook anyway. When did that change?

The only way to combat misuse of social networking sites it through improved security, i.e. pages for people under 16 are blocked by those over 16 unless approved by a parent, and through better education. Parents should research and learn about social networking and what the potential threats are, and children should be taught only to speak to people that they know and if they are not sure to raise the alarm. As soon as people become aware that it is not all Facebook’s fault and they have to think about their own personal security too, the panic will stop.

If anything MySpace is the one that should really be monitored more closely, I had a page when I was about 20 and got some very crude messages and pictures sent to me, that was slightly disturbing, but as soon as Facebook came along I deleted my page.

Parents should listen to their children when it comes to social networking and learn how it works so that if they want to intervene they can. It is pretty irresponsible to allow children that much time on the internet in the first place. Haven’t they got homework to do, or even an activity that keeps them fit and healthy? Some parents are allowing children to potentially become victims and it should be their responsibility to protect them.