Child actor Daniel Roche, who played Just William in the recent BBC1 series, has been targeted by an internet stalker who set up a fake Facebook page in his name. But when Daniel’s mother asked Facebook to take the page down they failed to act – until The Mail on Sunday stepped in.
Well this has been the usual story of FB. They do nothing till the media steps in.
A fake page was also created in the name of 8 year old Isabella who played Violet Elizabth Bott in Just William. Daniel’s mom discovered about her son’s fake page when Isabella’s mother told her. Although Isabella’s parents somehow managed to persuade FB to delete that page, but when Daniel’s parents contacted FB, nothing was done.
Scotland Yard also failed to act after Mrs Roche complained to a police station in North London. But Scotland Yard said it had ‘no knowledge’ of a complaint having been made by Mrs Roche. Very weird!
Last year, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre attacked Facebook for refusing to install a panic button which would allow users to report inappropriate behaviour on the site directly to CEOP.
A Facebook spokeswoman said:
‘It’s against Facebook’s rules to use a fake name or operate under a false identity and we provide our users with the tools to report anyone they think is doing this via report links on every page of our site.
These tools enable people to flag exactly why they are reporting someone, for example an inappropriate picture or a fake profile, and we urge all our users to make sure they are aware of how to use these reporting tools correctly.’
I don’t think any action is ever taken on FB. It’s only when the media gets in the picture, they delete pages or fake ids. They may have provided options, but it’s all useless. In fact a time comes when a person is so used to these fake ids that he/she stops complaining about them. Moreover, stalkers also confuse themselves as admirers, which is of course very amusing, as long as it’s not happening to you. It sounds like a broken record but FB never takes any action. Instead of wasting time on fake ids, it’s better to ignore them.
Social networking is so much fun. You get to meet people from all over the world. But it's not just FB, even other sites face the same problem. There are always people who want to abuse & invade the privacy of others. It doesn't matter what is their problem.
