Mother's worst nightmare: Facebook won't shut down stalker

[depakid]

A Sydney mother-of-three, her daughter and daughter's friends have been subjected to a two-week ordeal at the hands of a Facebook stalker and they have been unable to get the social networking company to intervene.

The mother, who wished to remain anonymous due to a police investigation, said she, her 12-year old daughter and her daughter's friend had been stalked, harassed and sent pornographic images. "Our daughters are so scared," the mother said.

The abuse began last month when someone hacked into the daughter's Facebook profile. Since then, the stalker has used the account to try to lure the adolescent's friends to divulge information about her.

The person has had online chats with people and knows where the family live, the mother said. The stalker has also used the 12-year-old's account to post vulgar and threatening messages on the mother's profile.

"f----ng give me your daughters they love me and i love them, you know you cant keep me away from them forever! i am going to be with them they are the mother of my children (sic)," reads one message posted by the hacked account on her profile. "i will find ur girls (sic)," reads another.

Whilst out at a work conference, the mother said she received a call from her daughter who was being babysat. "My daughter rings me in tears, saying ‘He knows what street I live in mum, friends told me’," the mother said.



More: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/mothers-worst-nightmare-facebook-wont-shut-down-stalker-20100902-14rr7.html

Yet another of the 999 reasons to avoid facebook.

[Mz Pip]

1. It this point

I'd just delete all the Facebook accounts in the family and call the cops.

[NeedleCast]

8. Probably can't delete the account

If the "hacker" changed the password, you wouldn't be able to access the account to delete it.

Of course, when we talked about "hacking a Facebook account" what we're really talking about is someone who had a shitty password.

[uncommon]

2. I received several abusive messages from a relative and reported all of them and FB did nothing.

They don't handle these issues well at all.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Amazing! Then Facebook IS like Orkut after all!

I alerted on Orkut communities that praise criminal organizations here in Brazil, and got a response that they "do not constitute a violation". :argh:

[dkf]

3. If this woman thinks Facebook can fix this she is crazy.

The guy already knows everything about them probably their email addresses too.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. He knows where they live. I think shutting down his Facebook access wouldn't be my first priority.

[Nite Owl]

4. Why is a 12 yr old

on Facebook in the first place?

[BadgerKid]

5. Because their friends are?

I saw it happen...a 12-yo and 15-yo wanted their accounts because their friends did.

Which raises the question... how does the first kid hear about FB? (Adults, I suppose, looking for their friends and old high school classmates, etc.)

It doesn't help that some kids have web-browsing cell phones and/or unsupervised computer use in the home.

[Dappleganger]

9. We're making our 12 yr. old wait.

Everyone else in the house has had FB accounts for awhile but my little man has to wait. There's lot of weirdos out there.
Our rule is that we have to be friends so we can see what's going on.

[JuniperLea]

15. Good for you!

I remember pouting because my mom wouldn't let me get my ears pierced until I was 14... I gave her a lot of grief because so many of my friends were able to wear such cute earrings. Jeez... what a brat I was! My mom was great... she stuck to her guns, and when I finally got my ears done, she bought me a pair of lovely pearl earrings... my birthstone. I still treasure them, and my mom. I'm glad she didn't give in. The best advice she ever gave me was "They will still love you." She was right! My kids never held a grudge over being disciplined. They still loved me! haha!

[hamsterjill]

22. Good for you!

Proactive parenting...what a refreshing concept!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. My kids wanted accounts so they could play games like Farmville. I didn't

let them get accounts but I did let them farm on mine for a while, as long as I was around.

And yeah, every so often I hear, "So and so has an account so why can't we?" and their Dad and I always say, "Because you are too young to deal with the bullies and adults, especially the ones who are sick and want to hurt little boys."

[Dappleganger]

11. Good on you.

Lots of parents I know used that excuse to let their younger kids have an account, but I think it's wiser to wait.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Yeah, it's just too scary out there. We met up (unknowingly) with a child molester this summer. If

it's sometimes hard enough for an adult to recognize one face-to-face, how can a kid surfing the 'net figure it out?

[Name removed]

7. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JuniperLea]

13. Turn off the damn computer...

Facebook shouldn't be the center of people's lives, fcol! Shoot... even I have my own personal strict InterTube rules! I don't even turn a computer on over the weekend, for example, preferring to remain completely IRL. It's refreshing. I've been chatting in the 'Tubes for over a decade now... been involved in some of the earliest flame wars... even had a music fan site shut down around a controversy involving me and a band member's wife (I laugh now... totally stupid shit).

Turn it off, get on a bike, walk the dog, go to the beach, go to the mountains, go to the local park, roller skate, play ball... come on, kids... life IRL is a freaking blast!

[Nite Owl]

14. Yes! There is a real world out there

and it's so nice to be there and not on here especially on the weekends. Even if I'm home no tv, just some music. Check in here and some other places quickly sometimes to see if the world isn't coming to an end over some crisis but that's about it. Much more relaxing.

[JuniperLea]

16. It sure is!

So much more relaxing! Every Saturday and Sunday morning I take my dogs to dog beach first thing... that sets the tone for the day, and gives me a three mile walk in the sand... great exercise.

That's another thing... kids just don't get enough exercise... you can't get much sitting at a computer.

[pstokely]

17. Has anyone been able to get in touch with a real person at Facebook?

They disabled my account and I haven't heard back from a real person in over a month. They can always just delete the account

[SoCalDem]

19. Um... can't she just "leave:" Facebook?

I know that in a perfect world her harasser would get kicked off Facebook, all the bad stuff would be forever-removed, and everything would be fine, but it does not work that way. I hope they have called the police about the real-life intrusion, but MY immediate response (as a mother) would be to close the damned Facebook "account", and stop my daughter's encounters online with this creep. He will find someone else to bother. It's "backing-down", but the goal here is to protect the daughter. The internet is dangerous in this way, because young people often do not know about the really nasty people "out there" , who prey on youngsters.

I'm very glad we did not have internet service when our kids were young. It has to be a very worrying time for parents:(

[propagandagirl]

20. Not sure you can delete a facebook account...

I tried deleting my facebook account, but as far as I can tell, they only "deactivate" it. If you sign back in with your name and password everything is right there waiting for you. I asked to have it removed completely and got no response.

[Dr.Phool]

21. You can delete the account.

You have to search "delete account", and follow some irritating procedures. I don't remember them all right now, but it takes about 2 weeks to delete the account. And if you log in during that period it stops the delete.

I did it to my account, waited two weeks, and it said, "that account does not exist".

So it can be done.

[shrike]

23. Some relatives of mine got harassing phone calls from someone we "sort of" knew when we were kids

He'd tried to friend me numerous times. Fortunately, I didn't recognize his name. If I don't know your name and face, I don't friend you. And even if I DO know your name and face, we'd better have had some kind of bond at one time, or at least talked to each other more than once in the last thirty years.

This guy lives two countries away at the moment, but he did get their work numbers and started calling them. Thankfully, it was nothing as whacked out as the thing in the post turned out to be.

The thing is, he's been kicked off Facebook at least once, but they've allow him to come back on. Why? If he tries to friend me again, he'll get another complaint against him.

FB has proven basically useless to me anyway, so it might be time to disable the account. We'll see.