More Cyberbullying on Facebook, Social Sites than Rest of Web

Thirty-two percent of online teens have experienced some form of harassment via the Internet, a problem also known as "cyberbullying." According to recent data, 15% of online teens have had private material forwarded without permission, 13% have received threatening messages and 6% have had embarrassing photos posted without permission.

In light of the recent discussions surrounding Facebook and privacy issues, it's important to note that Facebook's new push towards becoming a more open, public network won't just have an effect on an adult population concerned with worries of "friending" bosses and colleagues or adjusting the privacy settings on their children's photos - it will affect the children themselves, as well as teens and young adults, all of which combined make up over a quarter of the social network's user base.

In December, Facebook began a major push to open up people's profiles and make the network more public. Although originally pitched to college teens and later to high school students as a private way to connect with friends where mom, dad, teachers and bosses couldn't find you, the social network grew over the years to not only allow those adults in, but it has created a culture where it's now appropriate to friend the boss and the parents, too.

Earlier this year, Facebook's push for openness went even further, allowing for revamped profiles where all your interests are public, everything you "like" is public and certain websites are allowed to immediately tap into your data for "instant personalization."

The problem with all these changes is not only that they've come so quickly people are unable to keep up, but also the way they've been introduced to users. Facebook prompts you to accept a change, a recommendation of new privacy settings for example, and you do so - usually without reading the fine print.

And the fine print reads - to paraphrase - everything you do is now public!

For teens and tweens who clicked through on the network's "recommendations" without understanding what they meant, the impact to their online social lives will be broad. All of a sudden, they can read others' Facebook Wall posts and browse through their photos; they can see who friended who and who said what. They've essentially been given an all-access pass to the fodder needed for rumor-mongering, gossip and slam-book-style attacks re-imagined for an Internet age.