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Facebook may sue Daily Mail over false paedophile claims
Facebook may sue UK newspaper the Daily Mail after it printed an article falsely claiming a criminologist posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook was approached "within 90 seconds" by "a middle-aged man who wanted to perform a sex act in front of me". The article was entitled ‘I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you'. The article's author, Mark Williams-Thomas, says the headline was introduced by the Daily Mail's editors, even though they knew Facebook was not the social network he was using. Williams-Thomas does not name the social network in the body of the article and the Daily Mail has issued an apology to Facebook.
"In an article by a criminologist yesterday we wrongly stated that he had conducted an experiment into social networking sites by posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook with the result that he quickly attracted sexually motivated messages," says the Daily Mail's apology. "In fact he had used a different social networking site for this exercise".
A UK spokeswoman for Facebook says the company is considering legal action and looking at the "brand damage that has been done". Facebook revealed it is technically impossible for it to be involved in such a scandal because "minors under 18 cannot receive messages from somebody over 18". Facebook is calling on Williams-Thomas to reveal the social network at the centre of the Daily Mail's child abuse investigation. Williams-Thomas says he specifically did not name the social network as he does not "want people going to it and trying it out". The Daily Mail blames the incorrect naming of Facebook on "a matter of miscommunication".
