Bebo has become one of the biggest social networking sites in the world and the amount of young people starting to use the site is dramatically increasing. Bebo has 35 million members worldwide and over 90% is under the age of 35. The main concern for parents is knowing that strangers can access their children‘s Bebo pages and this has also been covered in the press by the dangers that children using Bebo are facing. Besides strangers, cyber-bullying is also a large problem that is faced by some kids using Bebo. Although, there is a ”report abuse“ tool on Bebo that allows children to report any other person who have been bullying them online and Bebo will investigate it and delete that person Bebo page. Employers have also started to search for ’future‘ employees Bebo sites and some have even refused to employ people after seeing the things they have posted on their site.

Here are a few safety pointers to make sure your kids are safe online:
· Bebo has an age limit of over 13 years old, which means that any child under this age should not access this site. BUT bebo does not ask for proof of ages so it is important that you make sure that any of your younger children do not access this site as they could be putting themselves in danger.
· It would be advised to make sure that your children doesn‘t give out any personal information over Bebo, or the internet for that matter. Photographs can sometime also be a bad idea as they are easily downloaded or edited by other people.
· People may not be who they say they are and giving out personal details such as your full name, address, age or phone number can be extremely dangerous. It is strongly advised not to meet up with anyone that you meet online as they might not be how they say they are. If your children are really determined to meet their online friends then you would need to ensure that there is someone responsible going along with them.

If you want to find out more information this topic bebo have set up their own ’Safety Tips‘ page:
http://www.bebo.com/SafetyTips.jsp