Is Facebook becoming a porn site and inappropriate for Christians?

The background of the problem

According to a survey carried out in 2008 December, the researches have found out Facebook to be the most popular Social Networking Website. Unfortunately most of the popular products become easy targets of abusers. This is common to Facebook too — Within less than two months we have seen many instances of Pornography and other material related to per versed sexual activity being published in the popular social networking site.

How do we know there’s porn in Facebook?

If you are not familiar with Facebook (that’s surprising) it has a feature called “News Feed” (probably the backbone of the popular social networking site) in which users see a constantly updated list of their friends’ Facebook activity. Yesterday we saw, the photograph of a naked woman. It appeared in our news feed as another friend had commented on it. – The image was supposedly posted to Facebook by the same woman pausing in the photograph. Later we discovered these images are linked to a Facebook album full of porn, open to any Facebook user. I immediately filed a complaint and sent to Facebook after which the offending content was permanently removed.

Lately there were the photos of a possible prostitute in which a friend had commented again (the images appeared in the news feed). We learned later these photos also are linked to a massive Facebook album – featuring this woman’s semi naked and sexually provocative pauses. She even had a paid Facebook ad campaign, which is probably used to promote herself and attract more clients. (This was reported to Facebook authorities too, but the images still remain untouched.)

Final thoughts

So if you are a Facebook user you don’t have to do any search to find these. All you need to have is a friend in Facebook exposing him self to these dirty content — chances are hire you will find them too, thanks to the “News Feed”

Some of you might say, we are responsible for our own actions. But what about our kids? 16% of Facebook users are teenagers which boils down to a number of 4,378,120 kids! It’s true that Facebook forbids anyone under 13 from signing up for an account. But such restrictions can be bypassed easily.

The web site also recommends that parents should monitor their child’s Facebook activity. But is this really fool proof? Ultimately the main question remains intact. Is Facebook becoming a porn site and inappropriate for Christians?

Yohan Perera 8 December 2009 Contemporary issues Facebook, Porn

4 Responses to “Is Facebook becoming a porn site and inappropriate for Christians?”

Alex says:

March 18, 2010 at 4:52 am

Yes that is true, fecebook is full with porn . Also everyone can share a Porn video from porn tubes and everyone can see it because facebook embed those videos.

Reply
Dave says:

April 3, 2011 at 9:58 am

@Alex, that’s a bold statement, saying that facebook is full of porn. I don’t believe that you have evidence for that.

I have had a facebook account for about three years now, and have an average amount of friends on facebook (300ish), and I have never seen porn. See the thing about facebook is that there is this nifty little feature called ‘unfriend’ and another called ‘hide post’.

If you are seeing a Facebook full of porn, I would question what kind of friends you make (or pages you like). Facebook is what you make it. You want porn? Go find porn.

And you have to remember, that the Facebook team is not omnipresent like God, it’s in your hands to report content so that the Facebook team can deal with it.

In short: Watch who you befriend, watch what pages you like, use that hide button, and report.

Reply
Hilary Marshall says:

July 26, 2012 at 9:19 am

Just wondered if you might be able to give us any advice or tips on accountability software for Facebook pls. We’re at sea!

our teens have just signed up recently to Facebook. It seems that the search engines within their Facebook page bypass all our standard K9, Google’s SafeSearch etc. Is there some way we can help to protect their Facebook activity, pls? Do you know if the XXX accountability packages cover Facebook activity? We all use the same computer in the family room and don’t yet have separate log ins which I think is maybe needed for the accountability software?. The kids both now have their own emails for Facebook.

They are also being exposed to some very unsuitable material in the NewsFeed that has been posted by their ‘friends’: is there any way to filter this somehow too, pls? Luke ‘liked’ a page of innocent jokes that a friend posted on the news feed but it came up connected to a very unsuitable page and a possible lure into porn. Lucy ‘liked’ a picture with praying for troops and didn’t notice the foul language at the top. Do you know if there is any way to block words or content? Can you block a ‘friend’ ‘s newsfeed coming through without the friend knowing and getting offended? Can you completely block friends without them knowing?

We’ve tried reading up on some tips but it all seems very vague. Are there settings that we might be missing?

Reply
- Yohan Perera says:
  
  July 26, 2012 at 9:20 am
  
  Hi Hillary,
  
  Thanks for dropping by.
  
  Inappropriate content in Facebook is becoming a hard reality and very little has been done to prevent these content other than letting the user to report and block them.
  
  It seems The Pro version of X3Watch supports multiple users on the same Computer. This comes with a monthly commitment however and you might need to contact them for further details. Here’s the URL: http://www.x3watch.com/x3watchpro.html
  
  If you want to filter inappropriate content I suggest that you try OpenDNS. With OpenDNS you can configure parental controlling at the router level without installing any software locally. It is much easier to use OpenDNS if you have a static IP from your ISP. (even if you don’t you can install the free IP update software available at OpenDNS web site in to your PC.)
  
  You have two free options to choose from:
  
  1. OpenDNS Home – https://store.opendns.com/get/home-free
  2. Familyshield – https://store.opendns.com/familyshield/
  
  Configuring your router to use OpenDNS is not difficult for some one with a basic knowledge of computers and Internet.
  
  In conclusion children these days are way too smarter than machines and eventually they invent methods to bypass even the best security defenses. The best filters we can set up against obscene content is to teach and train our children in God’s word.
  
  Hope the above mentioned resources would help you to protect your family online.
  
  Happy surfing.,
  
  Reply

Comments will be edited (grammar, spelling and slang) and authorized at the discretion of The Virtual Preacher. Also We possess the right not to publish selected comments.