Facebook could sue The Daily Mail newspaper over bogus sex pest claims
The Web’s most popular social networking site could be about to go head-to-head with one of the most popular newspapers in Britain. The Daily Mail falsely claimed that a young girl on Facebook was subject to predatory behavior by older men, when in fact it was another social networking site altogether.
The Daily Mail is known as the darling of middle England, appealing to the conservative right-wingers who inhabit the middle classes in the U.K. The newspaper’s headlines are notoriously sensationalist. If you believed every Daily Mail front page you read then you’d believe that everything is bad for you, the world is about to end, and there’s no joy left in life.
Which is why I wasn’t at all surprised to see an article titled ‘I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you’ on The Daily Mail’s Web site on Wednesday. I read it through, took it all with a pinch of salt, and then didn’t think any more of it.
The article appeared to show how posing on Facebook as a 14-year-old girl, criminologist Mark Williams-Thomas had been approached by older men “within seconds,” and that one had “wanted to perform a sex act” in front of him. Not having kids, I wasn’t about to start ranting and raving about how Facebook is bad for you and that every man on the Internet is a potential sex offender.
Low and behold, the story turned out to have been blithely manipulated to cause more controversy than it should have. The social network used for the experiment was not Facebook but another as-yet-unnamed site. In fact, it would be impossible for this to happen on Facebook as over-18s cannot send messages to under-18s. And a new Facebook profile being found by strangers “within seconds” doesn’t ring true either.
Facebook is justly aggrieved by this blatant bad journalism in the name of creating false controversy. And The Guardian claims the social networking site could sue The Daily Mail over this issue.
For now, the headline of the story has been edited to remove the reference to Facebook. And the newspaper has also printed an apology. Although it should be noted that the apology is tiny and tucked away inside the newspaper far away from the front page. Strange, eh?
The sad thing is that all this does is take away from what is a serious problem. It’s not as bad as The Daily Mail seems to want parents to think it is. And certainly not where Facebook or the other responsible social networks are concerned. But the newspaper has lost the chance to bring the true issue to light and fight to get something done about it.
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December 31st, 2010
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January 1st, 2011
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