How Do We Ward Off Facebook Impostors?

Facebook impostors are proliferating alarmingly as reported by the media. What started as a social networking website founded five years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, then a Harvard computer science major student, along with his colleagues, to communicate with friends and other contacts, has now become a medium for unscrupulous individuals to hatch their evil schemes.

Just recently, alarming exposés on scam artists, hackers, identity thieves and other Facebook Impostors posing as friends and stealing personal information from members rocked the global social networking community drawing almost universal criticism of the website.

One report tells of Bryan Rutberg of Seattle, USA, whose account was used to extort money from his friends. Rutberg’s impostor posted “Bryan NEEDS HELP URGENTLY!!!” on his status update to which one of his friends responded by sending money to London where Rutberg was allegedly robbed and in need of fare to get back to the U.S.

In another event, Anthony Stancl, a resident of New Berlin, Wisconsin, solicited naked photos of high school boys by posing as a woman on his Facebook account. He purportedly used the photos to compel the young men to engage in sexual acts with him. Stancl was later seized by authorities on grounds of 12 complaints of felony, which included ‘sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and possession of child pornography’.

Even a public official like President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana wasn’t spared from this vicious online modus operandi. In his case, an account was set up containing 174 supporters and two photo albums featuring the Berbice Bridge in Guyana and pictures of international leaders, some posing with the South American head. Jagdeo denied any involvement on the existence of the account and sought the assistance of the police to investigate on this matter.

In the light of these disturbing incidents, how do we ward off Facebook impostors?

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The Battle for Social Networking Supremacy Continues: Is Facebook Safer Than Myspace?

With the advent of the internet came the introduction of many high-tech forms of communication and services. Our socio-cultural awareness has been revolutionized by social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Multiply and the like. These online communities have widened our reach from just within our local neighborhood to the entire world. However, in so doing, they have also posed danger to our privacy and safety as they have become a vehicle for criminals to invade our lives through stalking or sexually harassing us, stealing our personal identities or performing similar other forms of cyber-bullying. While some of us just bear witness to these perpetrators, others are unfortunate enough to have become their victims.

Despite this setback, I don’t think that any one of us is ready to rid our system of all these networking sites. What we can do, however, is to look for the safer venue where we can hang out and make friends, and use our heads to make valid decisions.

Let’s examine two of the leading networking sites in the last few years - Facebook and Myspace. Over the years, both sites have battled criticisms regarding the security of their members, and although Facebook has been regarded as the “safer” choice than MySpace, let’s try to probe some more to really answer the question Is Facebook safer than MySpace?

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