Facebook Could Sue DailyMail Over Libellous Article

Social networking giant Facebook has expressed anger over an article published on Daily Mail, titled “I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you”, which gave the impression that underage girls suffered online abuse from paedophiles on Facebook.

Under the threat of a possible lawsuit, the news site has published an apology in which it claims that there had been some miscommunication which had lead to this error.

The author of the article, Mark Williams-Thomas, claimed that Facebook's name in the title had not been added by him and that he was referring to another major social networking site when he wrote the article.

Facebook's representatives were furious over the contents of the article as they fear that this might damage the reputation of the social network in UK, where it has an estimated 23 million users.

Commenting on what Facebook calls a deliberate attempt to sabotage its image, a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement “If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us. We have made Facebook to the safety of minors.”