SOCIAL networking websites used by children and teenagers can contain pornography, cyber bullying and discussions on alcohol and hard drugs, the UK's leading consumer body warns today.
Computing Which? investigated two of the most popular sites used - MySpace.com and Bebo.com - and were able to set up accounts by pretending to be a 14-year-old without providing proof of age or identity.
This allowed them access to millions of p
hotographs and personal profile details of youngsters who had created their own webpages.
Alarmingly, within minutes the researchers were also confronted with pornographic profiles and images.
In another instance, a teenage boy was running a poll on his website, asking his friends to vote on whether a girl they knew had AIDS.
MySpace, Bebo and other social networking sites monitor photographs only after they have been posted and rely on members to report rule-breaking. Jessica Ross, the editor of Computing Which?, said: "Children are spending hours every week on networking sites, building up their profiles and chatting with friends. However, what might seem like innocent fun has a darker, more sinister side.
"Teenage users need to be aware that there is no way of knowing who is behind the face of a 'friend'," she said. "Networking sites, such as MySpace.com and Bebo.com, need to do more to protect their millions of trusting members."
Social networking sites are a massive phenomenon. MySpace, the biggest of them, has more than 60 million members .
Bebo categorises members by schools and allows youngsters to join after being recommended by a fellow pupil.
However, some schools have been pro-active in protecting children from an activity which may be beyond the computer skills of their parents.
George Watson's College, one of Edinburgh's top private schools, had the Bebo site, along with a number of unsuitable links, filtered out of the school's computers.
Gareth Edwards, the principal, said: "We took the view that you don't always get the best results if you come across as a Luddite saying, 'Don't do this'.
"So we explained the consequences to pupils and said it was not a good idea to be placing photographs of themselves on these sites."
Michael Birch, Bebo's chief executive said: "Suddenly, parents are seeing this is happening and there's this kneejerk reaction to blame Bebo. But we have nothing to do with it. Seeing what their children are doing could help parents learn more about the realities of childhood."
But a spokeswoman from the government-run Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which has run forums with parents, warned: "Where young people go online, so will paedophiles."
The full article contains 456 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
