"Facebook is Evil and Should be Shut Down"

Dear Cybersorter,
I’ve heard that if you join FB you will get an STI, a riot round your house, your children kidnapped and while you’re out looking for them someone on Facebook will burgle your house.
Surely it should be shut down?
– DB

Dear DB,
There are many scary stories out there, particularly about Facebook. When you consider most people hadn’t heard of it five years ago and now about 50 per cent of its five million worldwide users log on in any given day – and it has recently been valued at $37.4 billion (€50 billion) – it’s not surprising that mainstream media along with everyone else are a bit, well, freaked out by it.
Endless salacious headlines, such as “Internet shopping for the burglars” (UK Daily Mail , August 2009) and “I am away from home, PleaseRobMe.com” (The Register.co.uk September 2010) don’t ease security fears.
Then there are the urban myths: “My colleague’s cousin got burgled when someone read they were away on holiday on their Facebook page” or “A friend of my son’s girlfriend got bullied on Facebook.”
It has happened in real life, but it’s rare and if you are sensible about what you put online, it’s irrelevant.
If you announce your every move, including holiday absences on your status updates and leave your privacy settings wide open then you make it more likely you could get burgled while you’re out.
Think of Facebook as your personal shotgun. If you aim right it can score you your next meal, if you are ignorant of how it works, how to deal with it and what the basic rules are then you will likely shoot yourself or someone else in the foot or worse.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Either way, and even if your computer gets a really nasty virus, you won’t get an STI from using it. Happy hunting.