So, Facebook is in the news again.

TV3 ran a story tonight about privacy on Facebook and how it was a big danger.  What they really ended up saying was really rather lame.  They set up a fictitious profile on Facebook and randomly invited 100 Kiwis to befriend them.  Astonishingly, 31 accepted.  Astonishingly? Their word.

What TV3 seem not to get is that Facebook, whilst having a slightly better rep’ than MySpace, is a social network.  People don’t join it to ward off strangers.  At least I suspect that is the case for most people.  TV3 did not say anything about the nature of the profile or those who accepted the friendship.  They did indicate the fictitious character was female – I wonder how many of the befrienders were male?

So, the point of the story?  Clearly to fill up space.  There was no real example of identity theft given even though they had a ‘victim’ who ‘could be in danger’. I suppose it was, in a sense, a valuable public service message.   Unfortunately the kind of people who will pay close attention to a story like this are probably not the same kind of people who would forward chain emails, respond to spam and freely give out their details online.

Just more of that quality journalism I am coming to expect from our mainstream media.