This morning someone on Twitter commented on this BBC article: Facebook Urged To Add Panic Button, asking people if they thought it would be effective. And there was some discussion about education being more effective than just “yelling panic”. Though apparently other panic buttons (unfortunate name) take people to a site “that details how to handle cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, distressing material and inappropriate sexual behaviour“, which sounds quite educational to me.

First of all, I was very surprised to find out that Facebook has no means of directly reporting offensive or inappropriate material. As the world’s largest “chat room” this seems irresponsible in the extreme. Every other forum or MU site I visit has a complaints button so why not Facebook? And while education is crucial, I think that a clear and easy way of contacting the people running a public site like this should be required “basic equipment”. There is a “report/block this person” link on the left-hand side of the page, but I think this just stops someone from viewing your own page. According to the article there is no actual means of reporting specific complaints to Facebook.

What are your thoughts on this?