Latest Facebook infection: syphilis!

Filed under: Security, Web services, Social Software

I'll be the first to admit that the evidence sounds a bit thin, but the Telegraph is reporting about a UK-based study that found a rise in syphilis in three areas of Britain with above-average Facebook use. It's not as if playing Farmville is going to give you a sexually-transmitted disease -- although I can't prove that conclusively -- so how did the researchers explain the link?

Turns out the people who used social networking sites more frequently were also using them to arrange more casual hookups. In other words, a key assumption of the study is that Facebook can successfully get you laid. I'll just have to take their word for it, I guess, but these British researchers found that people had arranged encounters with multiple partners over Facebook, probably leading to the uptick in the number of infections.

Taking all this into consideration, Download Squad presents the following Public Service Announcement: be safe when you browse Facebook. Use protection, and make sure your partners have been safe in the past. It also doesn't hurt to have a doctor run the occasional virus scan, if you know what I'm saying.

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Latest Facebook infection: syphilis! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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