The young teenager from a small Rajasthan town was aghast when a relative questioned her two months ago about the links to pornographic sites she had ostensibly posted on her Facebook (FB) account.

It was her profile all right, complete with her photograph and her authentic Rajsamand address, but the problem was she had never seen the links — or the site — before. Her concerned father went to the police and with the help of cyber security experts tracked down two former schoolmates.

The boys had created a fake FB profile of hers to put her in an awkward spot since she had stopped talking to them. The boys, now in college, were booked under sections 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, which can lead to a jail term of three to five years and a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

Social networking sites are putting young users in all kinds of trouble. And not all of them are the serious ones that call for police intervention. Many of the issues are minor but still traumatic for the children concerned.

Take the case of a 13-year-old student of Bangalore who commented on his classmate’s photograph on FB. She was wearing a horn cap on her head, and the boy joked, “You look horny” not aware of the real meaning of the word.

His classmate’s parents, who regularly monitored their child’s FB account, were not amused. They barred him from his classmate’s list and complained to the parents, who terminated the boy’s account.

Parents and teenagers in India are slowly waking up to the risks of the uber cool social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or the more recent Tumblr. A few years ago, when school kids logged on to oh-so-fashionable Facebook, faking ages (the age limit, now 13, was then 18 years) parents had little idea how to handle their children on these networking sites, beyond issuing a stern warning to them to beware of cyber stalkers.

Today, as children spend hours on these sites, parents and teachers are scuttling around like Inspector Clouseau and often clumsily monitoring the usage.

“The extent of trouble children can get into on these sites unknowingly is huge. The question is whether these teenagers who are experts at operating technology have the maturity to handle it,” says Gemmarie Venkataramani, a mother of a teenager and member of Fellow of Digital Inclusion Network, a body dealing with information and technology for development.

“I always tell my 12-year-old child never to comment on anything or use foul language. Whatever you post is unerasable for life and can be tracked 10 years from now,” says Venkataramani, who believes FB used properly with parental monitoring is a great tool for networking.

Sridevi (15 years, name changed) wrote on her wall the day she did not attend school — “I’ve bunked school.” A friend on her FB list carried the tale to the principal and she got severely pulled up. “Our teachers dislike Facebook and make it clear they don’t want us on it,” says Sridevi.

The reaction might be extreme but some counsellors raise pertinent points. “I have children as young as nine or 10 on Facebook. I wonder what happens if they are latchkey children and there is no one to monitor them,” asks Mohana Narayanan, a Chennai school counsellor.

Most schoolteachers admit to regularly trawling through their students’ Facebook sites for any irregular posts. “I spend one hour every night checking my daughter’s and my students’ accounts. I’ve had students striking up friendships with people they don’t know at all,” says Manisha Razdan, a teacher at Step by Step International School, Jaipur.

Besides the lurking danger of sexual predators and identity theft, there are problems posed closer to home and school for children as friendships gone sour are vented on these sites.

A 14-year-old schoolgirl from Bangalore was harassed by a popular gang of girls in her school on Facebook. “They made nasty remarks about her looks constantly to isolate her,” reveals Sarah Kalami, a Bangalore-based psychological counsellor.

The girl, who was at risk of falling into depression and was in a “victim mode”, kept logging onto Facebook just to re-read the messages. The victim ends up feeling “overwhelmed” with the idea that a large number of people are also privy to her humiliation, she adds.

“It’s sad but networking sites offer a platform to promote the ‘put-down’ culture and an escape zone for lonely kids,” agrees Arundhati Swamy, Chennai counsellor and president, Chennai Counsellors Foundation.

Christine Suniti Bhat, assistant professor, counsellor education from Ohio University, US, who has studied cyberbullying, says that cyberbullies don’t think through the consequences of their actions. “The speed and magnitude with which information is disseminated — when combined with the impulsivity of youth, can be harmful,” she points out.

Creating fake profiles and setting up voting booths to pick the ugliest or sexiest student are other forms of bullying.

“Facebook is one more platform and a public one to make one feel miserable and isolated,” admits counsellor Kalami, who however believes that being part of a popular social networking site is an integral part of a child’s growing up phase.

Counsellors say parents have to accept that children are most comfortable with technology and social sites help teenagers establish their individuality, build their image, seek independence, push boundaries, get some thrills and above all, have their “private” space. It makes them feel empowered and gives them an unrealistic sense of social power, they say.

But children also fail to think of outcomes and consequences since self-control and regulating behaviour are not yet developed in the brain, points out Swamy.

“Parents and children are totally unaware of the extent and depth of cyber crimes on these platforms,” warns Abhishek Dhabhai, an information security officer in an American company and chief advisor, NCSA-INDIA. (NCSA provides free service to cyber victims anywhere in India).

“We get nearly 150 cases of cyber abuse every month. It has gone up in the past three years. We had a case of a Class IX boy in Panipat who posted pictures of a senior student in his school with her phone number saying that she was accessible. How do you punish this guy?” he asks.

A year ago, a girl who had failed in her exams and then committed suicide had left many clues on her Facebook account about the kind of people she was interacting with. “If only her parents had monitored her account,” says Dhabhai.

It is true that children in this age group need a lot more emotional maturity to be able to handle discussions with discretion in such a public forum, admit counsellors. However, adds Kalami, networking sites are the future and this is a hands-on experience to learn how to make the right choices.

“It is a process and needs to be moderated by parents. You cannot let them loose on networking sites without dos and donts, but parents need to be moderators rather than spies,” she adds.

Bhat agrees. “It is up to the parent to teach children how to use these powerful forms of communication in an ethical and safe manner,” she says. The buck stops at the door of the parent, online as well.