Warnings over social site 'abuse'

Social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace must do more to police what users do, warns Computing Which?
A study of the sites by the consumer watchdog unearthed pornographic images, evidence of bullying and inappropriate adverts.

It also proved easy to pose as a child as the sites did no age or ID checks.

"Teenage users need to be aware that there is no way of knowing who is behind the face of a 'friend'," said Jessica Ross, Computing Which? editor.

During its investigation Computing Which? took a detailed look at Bebo and MySpace which are among the most popular social networking sites for teenagers.

In recent years sites such as MySpace and Bebo have built up a huge following. MySpace claims to have more than 80m users.

The sites let users chat to each other and give each one a personal webspace that can be used as a blog, illustrated with images or to host video clips.

The study found a "sinister" side to the social sites and revealed that the ease with which accounts can be created left open many avenues for abuse.

One researcher was able to pose as a 14-year-old on MySpace as the site did not require identification or carry out an age check.

yeah, there's a lot of stuff happening on those big sites. They really mimic the real world except for noone can see ur face. That's the scary part!

I love bebo and myspace lol. There is alot of inapropriate things that go on in both of them but what can they to do be honest. They cant moderate the millions of accounts.

I think they should censor words and such

I don't even use myspace or anything like that anymore its to unsafe.

I only use them to see how they work and look at their web technologies

I never use them to "socially netowork"... what happened to going down the pub for a it of social networking

Its a new form of bullying, cencoring words doesnt do a think, and is the least of their worries, we have sexual predators (well discussed already on this site),, but then school childeren are bullying one another, setting up fake accounts for other children, and some can get extremely upset if, for instance, derogatory comments are left, as they are so attached to their social network it has become a part of their life and culture; although I and I assume most others on this site distance ourselves from the social network sites, there are some who couldn't do without it, therefore becoming a newer and equally bad form of "Playground" bullying, which we all know how far that can go, and what can happen as a result of it.

Anyone can lie, not just sexual predators, but anyone can create their ideal personality, and play them, and a child could very easily be exposed to inappropiate content, making a mockery of all the limitations we have of the internet such as age ratings on films which are enforced so well in contrast. It is proved easy to pose as a child as the sites did no age or ID checks.

I remember being told never to give your second name out on the internet, now I must say, Im pretty Internet Savvy, like most of us here, but I still dont stick my photo up across the web or give my address away to any tom dick or harry who might end up on my "profile" page. Then we come to these 12 year old girls posting 100s of photos of themselves and their friends, sometimes videos, giving out mobile telephone numbers, locations, and schools. Maybe we need some better education for these children, it would only take a couple of talks in schools to make them all realise, let alone informing parents, who probably dont even know what myspace is, and havent a clue what their child is doing on the computer for hours; and before you say, the answer isnt parental control programs, as the child probably knows how to disable it or get around it easier than the parent knows to enable it, I think its to do with educating parents too.

I think ultimatly its not up to legistaltion, or government funded education programmes although that would help, its up to the social networking sites to step in, and change things, as they perfectly well know whats going on, yet, because so much money is involved, they are simply turning a blind eye to what is happening. All it will need is a few large scale incidents for some legistaltion and educational programmes to be brought in, hopefully in the US/UK as that will have an effect on the social networks in question.