It may be Facebook’s turn to sue someone this year if they decide to pursue their threats against the U.K.’s Daily Mail after a story in which the tabloid claimed to have had a reporter pose as a 14 year old girl on the popular social networking site. The story, one of many designed to terrify parents with children who roam the internet (i.e. all parents of kids over ten), focused on the dangers of pedophiles and teens sharing social networking space. Its original title was “I Posed as a Girl of 14 on Facebook.” Facebook’s problem with the story is that its a big lie. While the writer of the story did in fact set up a social networking account as a teenage girl, it wasn’t on Facebook.
The author of the original article, Mark Williams-Thomas, claims that within minutes his fictional teenage girl was being sexually propositioned. The writer is clearly out to terrify parents, using language like “adventure playground” when describing how pedophiles view the site. While the Daily Mail has offered a “clarification” of the article, it still hasn’t named the actual site the fake account was set up on. Facebook, which has faced plenty of criticism about vulnerability of children on its site and gone to great lengths to address the problem, is naturally upset to be associated with such a damning article.
Should you be worried? Probably no more than you should be of the fact that your teenager probably also spends time at the local mall or drives to and from school. A bit of parental supervision and a lot of education about these dangers goes a long way. Facebook in particular has made a huge effort to find and eliminate predatory users, including making it impossible for users over the age of 18 to message users under the age of 18 that they don’t have a relationship with. Williams-Thomas maintains that he never associated his article with Facebook and that his editors changed the article to include the networking site, despite the fact that Williams-Thomas told them it was wrong.
