Facebook: Another daft attack from the tabloids

Many newspapers are today proclaiming a link between Facebook and syphilis.

In fact the Sun newspaper was so alarmed that it gave space on its front page to declare: “Facebook spreads syphilis”.

This is such nonsense and makes newspapers look daft to a generation growing up where to be awake is to be on Facebook.

The evidence for this bizarre story is the half baked thoughts of Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Tyne Tees who has based his assumption on two facts of a rising rate of syphilis in three areas and a reported high number of Facebook users in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside.

Prof Kelly said: "I don't get the names of people affected, just figures. And I saw that several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites.

"Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms."

His claims are apparently based on just 30 cases and yet have been given coverage in dozens of newspapers.

Wouldn’t a more accurate summary be ‘Casual sex leads to rise in syphilis’ or ‘Not using condoms leads to rise in syphilis’.

The professor should know that it’s bad science to take two correlating facts and assume one is the cause of the other.

What next?

Christmas shopping leads to increase in bone fractures? – based on number of people falling over in the run up to the festive season.

Perhaps newspapers have another agenda here. After all, it was only last week that the Daily Mail claimed Facebook allowed men to approach teenage girls within seconds of them creating a profile. This is totally untrue and the Mail quickly altered its online version to say "a social network" site rather than Facebook and then printed an apology.

And last year the Daily Mail claimed Facebook could increase the risk of cancer.

So either these papers are just desparate to get Facebook into any headline or they just want to hurl as much mud as they can in Facebook's direction in the hope that some of it will stick.

The risk, though, is that such obviously daft stories will further alienate the Facebook generation.