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"The telephone was going to be a threat to families because women would spend too much time talking to friends, television would destroy the health of our children because they would never go outside again, and of course video games would encourage violent behaviour"

3 out of 3 is pretty conclusive. Time to curb social networking!!

"Cider Gives You Syphilis" - maybe; but it'll cost you 10% more than previously.

The Telegraph taking pot shots at Facebook... there is old news if ever I saw it.

Looking at the facts here it seems that journalists need to go back to square one and learn what good reporting looks like again. They should focus particular attention to unbiased reporting.

Personally if I could do one thing to improve journalism it would be to impose a quota on the number of times each paper could use the words 'Crisis' 'Chaos' 'Soars' 'Plummets' etc

Newspapers around the world have been complaining about how technology (the internet in particular) is destroying their industry. They bang on that what makes them special and worth keeping is their insight, op-ed pieces and social commentary rather than just regurgitation of the facts.

If this is the quality that they think is acceptable, I can only hope that the industry dies out sooner rather than later.

I wonder if some of these sexually active people are using public transport to spread these diseases throughout communities; should we not think about curbing the use of buses to help safeguard our young people?

Remove their mobile phones, computers, and other such evil communication devices as well - we would all be much safer. Surely it all the fault of the government, isn't it? More laws, more police power to stop, search and question these sorts of people and more video surveillance would surely help. Why has no -one mentioned Twitter yet?

Oh wow. The news media sensationalising a story? Who'd have thought it?

+1 for Cameron's idea. Report the news and don't put any spin on it. Try to go for a whole day without using any subjective words.

Apart from the idiocy of the story and the lack of hard data to back it up there's the not particularly well hidden agenda behind the Murdoch-owned papers seizing any opportunity to rubbish Facebook - namely that Murdoch owns MySpace, which oddly enough, doesn't get linked into these mindless scare stories.

The bigger story here though is just how bad our press has become. PR guff is reported as news, facts are routinely twisted to suit either the political agenda of the outlet or for simple sensationalism and columnists are happy to stir up whatever prejudices suit them then disingenuously claim it's nothing to do with them when other people start acting on the rubbish they spout.
Take today's front pages. Any helpful analysis of what impact the budget is going to have on the national debt or on public services, or what exactly the Tories or Lib Dems would have done differently? Nope, just the pre-prepared front pages either rubbishing it or supporting it depending on the paper.

Have you noticed, that people are still having sex? All the denouncement had absolutely no effect. Parents and counsellors constantly scorn them, but people are still having sex - and nothing seems to stop them.

Do you realise, that people are still having sex? They have been told not to, perhaps they are perplexed? When you see them holding hands they’re making future plans to engage in the activity, do you understand?

People are still having sex, lust keeps on lurking!

(La Tour, of course...)

I can't see how anyone who understands Facebook can think it's responsible for a significant rise in casual sex. A quick non-scientific search on Facebook brings up 17 groups with the words "casual sex" in them, some of these are not relevant, and none of the others have more than 400 members. The chances of finding a casual encounter in your town on Facebook seems remote at best.

However, there are other free sites, some of which claim they're social networks (just to sound trendy), which are dating sites and have categories for "intimate encounters" etc. These other sites may indeed be a part of the chain of events which could lead to increases in STDs.

But Facebook is the biggest thing the print media have heard of, they don't understand it and are therefore scared of it. So if there's a potential vague relationship between some bad news and some form of online technology, they'll blame Facebook. It's called sloppy journalism.

The other thing is that the press are self-appointed moral arbiters and seem to think that consenting adults having casual sex is always bad thing. And they wonder why their readership is falling year on year.

Facebook-bashing by the Sun is a fairly well documented activity. It would obviously have nothing to do with MySpace being another part of the Murdoch empire...

Can you send your figures to @bengoldacre - he's going out of his mind on Twitter because NHS Tees are blanking him....

I blame Gordon Brown!!! ;D

I am a HIV prevention manager, most STD infections in United States Are users on the Craigslist sex with no strings site

Social networking sites – doesn’t that term include the ever popular dating sites as well as the more specialist one catering for just people only looking for sexual hook-ups.

Presumably the hacks in Mail/Telegraph land have only ever heard of one social networking site, they clearly don’t understand this new interweb thingy they’ve only just discovered exists; so anything they can hype as the latest great threat to civilisation as we know it (even looking at one will make you go blind, your willy will drop off, your wife will run off with a stranger – probably an asylum seeker – your children will be raped and killed by strangers) is now ascribed to FB as the public face of the interweb thingy.

Its paranoia of a high order. Mind you The Mail in particular seems to be fast losing its grip on any semblance of reality; can the mental health act be used to detain a media outlet in the interests of their own health and safety and the protection of other persons?

norm: And, from 2003, , there's no news like old news.

More depression from the papers. If it's not Gordon Brown responsible for everything from plague to impotence, it's Facebook responsible for the moral decline of humanity and Britain in particular.

Makes you wonder what morons actually read the papers doesn't it? Maybe the papers aren't read at all as the people buying them can't actually read.

I'm mortified that such drivel gets into the ´óÏó´«Ã½, and I actually wasted my time reading it.

Shock horror, 100% of face book users will at some time in their lives die.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

As I see it, there is a bit of a misconception in some parts of the passage. The author starts off saying televisions, phones, video games and social networking sites that have led to some of the bad effects of life. He goes on talking about Facebook, whose existence has encouraged casual sex which in turn causes syphilis. He supports his points with some sources. He finally ends up saying he does not blame social networking sites for the cause of syphilis. Details and causes of syphilis are well explained in the NHS website( ). NHS staff members are offered with [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]


As a matter of fact, even a simple scissor or knife has two sides. Knives and scissors have to be kept away from little children. One cannot blame knives because of the increasing amount of deaths caused due to stabbing.

The internets and the facebooks have contributed in enormous good things in life. It is unfair to make any statements against them or blame them for common misfortunes. Those section of people that have exceeded the moral limits of life or those who indulge in illegal activities find their fate in the end. There is no point in blaming developing technologies that have done wonders to human life. A champion utility like the Facebook have made the world a very small place by bringing people closer, sharing great ideas between men and other such stuffs.