The computer communities that can become a social network of nastiness

The likes of Facebook and Twitter were supposed to bring us closer together, but what happens when social networking sites turn nasty?

IT was just another quiet Sunday afternoon.

The weather was miserable and to relive a moment of boredom I logged on to Facebook and there it was, the awful news that a friend had been diagnosed as HIV positive.

Having agonised for several days over who to tell and how to go about it, he had decided to set up a heart-breaking group on the social networking site pleading for advice and support. Clearly anxious, frightened and in need of a helping hand, he had written an extremely emotional statement to all of his friends, imploring them to get in touch.

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Shocked, concerned and while not quite knowing what to say, I tapped out a message which I hoped would let him know that I was thinking of him and whatever he needed, even if it was just a shoulder to cry on, I would be there.

His reply was not what I expected. My friend was not HIV positive, instead he was the victim of a cruel hoax. Another supposed friend of his had hacked his account and created the bogus group, with inevitably distressing results.

Much has been written about the dark side of Facebook, particularly surrounding privacy and the protection of young people. But it's the "bad taste" pranks, the deliberately malicious gossip and the sick hoaxes which now seem to be causing increasing concern on social networking sites.

Just last week Wayne Dale admitted spreading false rumours about the location of one of James Bulger's killers. The teenager from the Isle of Man posted a message on Facebook falsely claiming that Robert Thompson was a B&Q worker on the island. Online, gossip spreads quicker than ever before and the kind of urban myths which used to take months to circulate can now do their damage in minutes.

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In February, the family of Claudia Lawrence spoke of their disgust after an 18-year-old man who left a posting on Facebook claiming to be the missing 35-year-old York University chef was officially cautioned for wasting police time.

Facebook has grown rapidly in recent years. It now has 400 million members worldwide, and in the UK, an astonishing 23.5 million people – 38 per cent of the population – have Facebook accounts.

When it started, it was a way of finding long lost friends and keeping up to date with relatives hundreds of miles away, but increasingly the site, and others like it, are being hijacked by those who call themselves practical jokers, but who leave their victims little to laugh about.

Last year, Sheffield man Stuart Slann said his life had become a "nightmare" after he was tricked into travelling 400 miles to Aberdeen to meet a Facebook love-interest named "Emma" – only to discover that she was an invention of two rival football fans he had met on holiday. Details of their prank were then posted on the site, leading to a deluge of emails ridiculing Mr Slann.

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Recently, there have been several cases in which people have been falsely declared dead on Facebook, but it is the rise of the so-called internet "Trolls" that is perhaps the most disturbing trend. After joining online community groups, trolls post deliberately inflammatory comments with the whole aim of provoking others.

Last month, online condolence groups set up by bereaved relatives to remember their loved ones were defaced with offensive material. Family and friends of Bradford teenager Charlotte Wilson – who died in a car accident last October – were among those who fell victim to this cyber abuse, with the internet hijackers posting sick messages, pictures of wrecked cars and taunts about her death.

It's not just Facebook which has exposed our nasty side. On Friday, Stuart MacLennan, who was hoping to stand as the Labour candidate in the Moray constituency, was sacked after a string of offensive comments he posted on Twitter appeared in a newspaper. The internet is seen as a key battleground in this year's General Election, but for MacLennan, who posted a series of foul-mouthed rants about opposition politicians, including David Cameron and Nick Clegg and who apparently branded the elderly "coffin dodgers", showed just how it can backfire.

"To a lot of people what they post on social networking sites doesn't seem quite real," says Dr Mariann Hardey, social media expert at the University of York and writer of a blog on Facebook etiquette. "If you were face-to-face, you wouldn't get the same behaviour because you'd be dealing with people's reactions. But on a social networking site it's text-based and people can write something, send it out there and they think they don't have to deal with it.

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"A lot of people don't understand the full implications of what they are doing. It's not an excuse, but they may be young, naive and socially immature and they need to learn that these stupid actions have very real consequences. As well as causing a great deal of hurt, if you do something malicious, it may well come back to smack you in the face. If an employer carries out a background search and finds that you've been harassing people online, are they really going to want to give you a job at their organisation?

"These kinds of incidents beggar belief, but there have always been issues with bullying and intimidating behaviour unfortunately. The old playground mentality has crossed over into the world of social networking."

Facebook and other sites have long maintained a system whereby users can block and report harassment, abusive behaviour and material that they find offensive. However, action is inevitably retrospective and the damage may already have been done before the offending material is removed.

"Facebook is highly self-regulating, and users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive," says a company spokesperson. "Facebook maintains a robust reporting infrastructure that leverages users to keep an eye out for offensive or potentially dangerous content.

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"This includes report links on pages across the Facebook site, systems to prioritise the most serious reports, and a trained team of reviewers who respond to reports and escalate them to law enforcement as needed. Facebook has always been based on a real name culture.

"This leads to greater accountability and a more trusted environment for our users. It's a violation of our policies to use a fake name or operate under a false identity, and we encourage people to report anyone they think is doing this, either through the report links we provide on the site or through the contact forms in our Help Centre.

"We strongly encourage anyone who creates a page or group on Facebook to use the specific privacy controls to manage their pages or groups, and block or ban anyone who tries to post offensive content."

Despite all the Facebook horror stories, Dr Hardey stresses that instances of distasteful or troubling behaviour shouldn't

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over-shadow the positive impact that social networking can have.

"Great things happen online every day," she says. "It brings people together, re-unites family and old school friends, and research suggests that it's allowing the younger generation to enjoy spontaneous interactions with friends, and enhance their relationships.

"Social networking does sometimes reflect the fall-outs and malicious actions of everyday life. But it also reflects the kind actions and the genuine well-meaning thoughts of an awful lot of people."