Facebook panic button

UK Teens can report suspected online predators

Teenagers who use the social networking phenomenon Facebook in Britain can now add a new internet safety feature to report “friends” they suspect may be sexual predators.

Fears of abuse via Facebook rose recently in the UK after the rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall by a 33-year-old convicted sex offender, posing as a teenage boy, who she met on Facebook, according to the BBC.

Young Facebook users in the UK can now add a “panic button” on to their profiles to report and prevent malicious behavior such as cyber-bullying and sexual harassment. The “panic button” − which is a Facebook app that adds a tab on to your Facebook profile was created by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP), a British law enforcement agency. The application is a link not only to the CEOP website but also to nine other different sources of help including Childline and Beatbullying. An automatic advert for the service will appear on the home page of users aged 13 to 18, encouraging them to add the facility on their Facebook profiles.

As yet there’s no sign of this feature being made available in South Africa.Now see The Reluctant Tech Geek