Seven months ago, one of our software quality assurance testers (I will call Michael) created a Facebook account for a fictional girl, Savannah, with a provocative photo in a bikini.  Her Facebook profile says she's just turned 14 yrs old.  The account is used for testing the integration of Net Nanny with Facebook and is not actively updated.

To satisfy curiosity, Savannah (or rather Michael) accepts all "friend" requests, and she's had almost 500 but Savannah never posts comments or replies to messages.

Within a few months, her Facebook wall was littered with inappropriate comments from "friends" and non-friends.  She has received hundreds of private messages as well with vulgarity and sexual content.  Sadly, many of her hundreds of "friends" are men in their 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's.

The moral of the story is that parents must be aware of their child's Facebook use because there are hundreds of potential "friends" looking to contact and lure a child into dark and scary places.

Be a parent.  Get software tools to make your job easier to monitor Facebook.

I work for ContentWatch and all opinions expressed here are my own.