Facebook v Daily Mail - who to believe?

[frankie3]

This is quite interesting. Mark Williams-Thomas (famous child protection consultant and former police) was quoted in the Daily Mail saying that he posed on Facebook as a 14 year old girl and within minutes was propositioned by men with nude photos etc. Now he is retracting this, saying that the Daily Mail have misquoted him and it was not on Facebook but a different "Social Networking Site".

However, I heard him a week ago on BBCLondon Radio talking about it to Vanessa Feltz and I am sure that he said that it was on Facebook!

Who to believe?!

neither

Does it matter?

Mark Williams-Thomas is a complete tit.

Yeah, saw this in Private Eye this week - I believe Private Eye

Have just searched the Mail site and they've changed the headline and put a correction at the bottom to say it wasn't Facebook.

Anyone who actually used facebook would realise it's extremely unlikely you'd be attracting people trying to have sex with you within an hour of signing up - it just doesn't work that way...

Maybe he was actually on ChatRoulette or something? Easy mistake to make

I wouldn't belive either either. We had an email today from DD's school about that chat roulette thing. Luckily for us dd is 8.10 and more interested in building her virtual zoo on CBBC.

I share a name with a famous model/celeb and within days of signing up to facebook I was propositioned by up to 15 people daily (mainly 14 year old school boys by the looks of things!) I changed my settings and it has all stopped.

i've been on a good few courses with CEOP. I'd say ime it was highly likely that an open profile of a teenage girl was targeted quickly. If not fb then that something hotel one or bebo.

Has anyone else had blokes propositioning them saying they've seen them on Zoosk? (A dating site, apparently.)
I get it all the bloomin' time! I'd never heard of Zoosk!
I've emailed Zoosk asking them wtf is going on, but I get an automated reply.

FWIW, I'd believe Pivate Eye too!

Cranky there's an application on FB that lets you 'rate' people, you might have done it once and then you'll one of their members, I think Zoosk is one of those.

I set up an account and being a novice and certainly not a teenager initially I was not too bothered to find settings for security etc etc and I too got loads of 'Friends requests''from names Ive never heard of - or a very tenuous link to me, ie a friend of a friend of a passing acquaintance. It unnerved me.

And people I barely know were posting all their going ons on my wall - whatever the hell that is. Again my realworld friend had to sort it out for me.

Had to get a friend to show me how to set up my profile properly and stop the unsolicited approaches.

so i think it is possible for someone to get approached before they have had a chance or the computer savvy to set the profile up correctly.

I dont like face book as some of my friends are hooked on it, its almost impossible to have a conversation with some as 'its all on face book'

Thanks Dolly! Can't think I'd "rate" someone though!
(Sorry for hijack)

I can see how it would be easy to prey on young people on FB actually. I can see the profile of friend's children, and message their friends if I so desired.

this was on TV last night. Showed how easy it is for someone to get into your profile and get personal info on you and your friends and from that potentially access your email account.

......