A week after Facebook acknowledged declining interest among younger teenagers, the world’s largest social network has launched a “bullying prevention hub” aimed at helping teens deal with online harassment.
The hub offers suggestions for victims to address their abusers, including online conversation starters such as, “Hey, NAME — that comment wasn't funny. I don’t like it, please take it down,” according to NPR.
The bullying prevention hub is designed to help teen victims, parents and educators address bullying on Facebook, while offering tips for handling bullying both online and in real life, NPR reports.
The hub follows Facebook’s social reporting efforts in 2011 that suggested language for users who wanted other Facebook users to remove a photo.
“We were pretty impressed when we rolled out social reporting a couple of years ago that people were willing to engage with each other, as long as we suggested some text to use,” Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld told NPR.
When asked to remove a photo, Facebook members have complied 83 percent of the time, Steinfeld said.
Facebook’s bullying prevention hub rolled out this week after its Chief Financial Officer, David Ebersman, acknowledged for the first time last week that “we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.”
Overall, Facebook visits by all U.S. teens remained stable, said Ebersman, who did not provide numbers and downplayed the significance of the decline among younger teens.
But the revelation surprised industry analysts during Facebook’s earnings call last week because Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously had said that teens were not leaving the site.
Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, welcomed Facebook’s new anti-bullying tool but told NPR that it should have come sooner, saying “Facebook has been a big part of the problem in this area.”
Photo: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. (San Jose Mercury News)
Source: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/11/08/facebook-launches-anti-bullying-tool/
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