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bout six years ago, Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at Harvard University invented a website with membership limited to university students. Today, the website – amicably named Facebook – has about 400 million users worldwide.

Throughout its development, Facebook has not only served as a medium for social networking – connecting childhood friends and families for a reunion or gathering – but also as a social and political “weapon” in fighting against injustice.

The massive online public support for Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairmen – Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah – in the cicak (gecko) versus buaya (crocodile) saga against the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office was one example.

The Coins for Prita and subsequent Coins for Bilqis movements show how Facebook has successfully served as an influential solidarity-maker among Indonesians. Within days, an online invitation on Facebook managed to collect Rp 615 million (US$65,775), more than enough to help Prita Mulyasari compensate for the Rp 204 million fine imposed by the court following a lawsuit filed by a private hospital in Tangerang against the spread of her circulated email complaining of the hospital’s poor services. Meanwhile, a similar online invitation managed to collect over Rp 1 billion, about the same amount needed to cover the hospital treatment for 17-month-old Bilqis Anindya Passa, who has to undergo a liver transplantation.

Those are the positive impacts of Facebook. But as wise men say: “It’s not the technology, but the man behind the gun that tells”, Facebook has its negative impacts.

Just recently, four students in Tanjungpinang, Riau Islands, were expelled from a senior high school for defaming their female teacher in their Facebook accounts. A shocking, bitter story is the rampant kidnapping cases, involving victims who happened to know the perpetrators through Facebook. The case first made the media headlines after the family of Marietta Nova Triani reported to the police that the 14-year-old girl was missing. Days later, the families of Abelina Tiur Napitupulu, 14, and Sylvia Russarina, 23, also reported that they had gone missing.

The above cases have opened our eyes to the fact that Facebook contains a hidden danger: the safety of our children. However, to completely ban or limit Internet access is impossible because the Internet has become part of our lives.

So, what should we do then to minimize the danger?

With children now able to access Facebook through their mobile phones, besides through PCs or laptops, parents as well as teachers are encouraged to explain the hidden danger of the social network to children.
Banning Facebook, Twitter, Friendster or other social networks will prove to be counterproductive.

Parents could play a bigger role in preventing the negative impacts or the danger of Facebook by helping children understand potential abuse of their private data. Most children still do not realize that the social networking medium is a public sphere where everyone can access their personal data.

As Zuckerberg himself said during a discussion on “The Next Digital Experience” on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month: “.... You’re always sharing with friends, not everyone, on Facebook.”