Facebook is a social networking service that was established in February 2004 and has become one of the world's top communication networks. Its initial purpose was to allow users to interact with 'friends' and family, create, organize and advertise events and share photographs. It enables people to find lost family or high school friends. This has since transformed as advertising and marketing has pushed its limits in an attempt to get noticed. This has seen concerts, businesses, art exhibitions, artists of all walks and competitions creating pages. and to start your own page to boost your school, company or just to share you artistic work.
As with every change with good intentions there has also been negatives with this
advancement in technology. It has become even easier to become victims of 'stalking' and
harassment. 42% of kids have been bullied while online. 1 in 4 have had it happen more than once. This in turn sees an increase in depression and self-esteem problems. Facebook have responded to this by giving the user the option to 'block' another user or report abuse. There is more than 20,000 profiles deleted every month due to cyber-bullying.
Social networking developments have also enabled pedophiles to have more access to children and teenagers. Whilst there is little Facebook can stop this from happening as you cant particularly screen for pedophiles there are certain procedures they have put in place to avoid high levels of risk. This includes implementing an age barrier (13+) to ensure a certain
level of 'street smarts' and supplying information to the child and parent on ways to protect themselves e.g. not adding or contacting anyone they don't know.
Despite its ups and downs Facebook has over 175 million users and is currently the number
one network with MySpace and Twitter following behind. Facebook continues to grow.
www.facebook.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
www.facebook.com/policy.php
www.answers.com/topic/facebook
http://www.isafe.org/channels/sub.php?ch=op&sub_id=media_cyber_bullying
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