Facebook demands Daily Mail names risky social site

Facebook is demanding more details from the Daily Mail

Facebook is demanding that the Daily Mail names and shames the social networking site referred to in an article about young girls being at risk from paedophiles.

The newspaper published a story on Wednesday written by a child protection consultant and former police detective, Mark Williams-Thomas, who said that he had posed as a young girl on Facebook and within 90 seconds had been approached by "a middle-aged man" who "wanted to perform a sex act in front of me".

The article had to be altered after the Daily Mail admitted that Facebook had not been the social site Williams-Thomas had used, even though the story remains published online.

Facebook was believed to have threatened legal action against the Daily Mail yesterday, but has now issued an official public statement asking for the tabloid to disclose more details.

"We are extremely concerned by the behaviour of the Daily Mail, who have since corrected the story somewhat and made some clarifying statements," Facebook said.

"We should all be concerned that their refusal to name the network they did use for the experiment is not helping to expose the real places where people are vulnerable online."

The Daily Mail has not yet issued a response to the demand. V3.co.uk requested a comment from a legal representative at the paper, but was told: "What interest is it to you?"

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Williams-Thomas claimed that he had tried to have the story changed before it was published, and that the three-day scandal was all down to "a spot of lazy journalism".

The spokeswoman added that Williams-Thomas will not name the social site in question because it would give "open sesame to any paedophile".