Facebook Under Fire Are You Surprised?

'Facebook is Under Fire' was one of the headlines I read last night. I can't say as I am too surprised considering some of the stories that have been about over the past while that are connected to facebook. A story ran a while back that a fifteen year old girl Phoebe Prince committed suicide as a direct result of cyber bullying and to crown it off disparaging remarks were posted to her facebook memorial page. An indication of what sort of  people are out there and how 'pleasant' our teenagers can be.Two girls have apparently since been expelled from the school in Hadley Mass.

The latest story is the story of Ashleigh Hall who believed she was talking to a boy on facebook, arranged to meet him and got into the car of Peter Chapman who she thought was his father but who in fact was a pedophile who had been posing as the teenage boy on facebook. He had contacted her, met her, murdered her.

Facebook is being criticized for not having a panic button (the child exploitation online protection button). It is available on MSN and Bebo but in the case of Ashley Hall I can't see how this would have been off use as she obviously thought she was genuinely talking to another teenager and did have a sense of trust otherwise she would not have gotten into the car. That is the main difficulty when you are talking to someone that you have never met online. How can you know that they are genuinely who they say they are? I think this is a difficult enough prospect for an adult never mind a child. It makes you wonder is it possible to protect your kids in this online world?

I don't know how the panic button works but it has been suggested that it also acts as a deterrent. Facebook says there is only anecdotal  evidence to suggest that this panic button helps but perhaps these social networking sites have not been operating long enough to have anything more than anecdotal evidence. I am not sure why they have a resistance to putting something like that on their site, as I say I don't think I know enough about what it entails and how it helps to protect children. I think it comes back to the parents to talk to their kids and tell them of the dangers of strangers and not to arrange to meet up with anyone they don't know. Off course being a parent I know how difficult it is to keep an eye on what your kids are up to and sometimes you feel as though an awful lot rests on having faith in their judgement and that can be frightening! For they are kids.

Facebook is a useful tool for friends and families to keep in touch, to share photographs and to just mention the silly details of  life. To post up a cheerful or jokey greeting to one another and to play games like mafia wars and farmville. It passes the time when you are fed up with television and you can chat to people if you want. I don't as a general rule being old fashioned I prefer the phone when I want to talk. I do however get great pleasure checking my family and friends photos out and reading their walls. My friends on facebook are people I know and I have a varied and interesting bunch of contacts. I    have the wit to keep my settings to 'only friends' as I believe most people do and I am aware that you can block someone if they are offensive but because I actually know all my friends I don't think I will ever have to use this tool. In saying that how I view facebook is probably typical of my age group- as a tool for keeping in touch with people I already know. The few people who are on my contacts list that I haven't met are usually my family/ friend's friends who have added me to their list to make their mafia gang bigger or something like that. I don't have the 'thousands of friends' which people associate with facebook I can't see as a thousand people (strangers)would be interested in my day to day dribbling!

Younger people are naturally more curious and less afraid of talking to people they have never met that is how it should be I suppose because if you cannot be curious and maybe a little foolish when you are young when can you be? Though we have to balance that with making sure our kids are aware of the possible dangers of talking to people they have never met online and we should teach them strategies for keeping themselves safe.Like never meet up with someone alone and always let people know where you are going!

Sometimes the idea of kids using places like facebook is terrifying to a parent and you wish you could uninvent all these things that were not around in our day. When we think back our world was so small and life seemed more straight forward and safe in comparison; but you cannot turn back the clock you can only hope that your kids are listening to you and taking what you say on-board.