RALEIGH, N.C. -- Online social networks are gaining more members by the minute and many of them are teenagers.

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In a special NBC 17 investigation, myself and my colleague reporter Sergio Quintana set up our own Facebook accounts with our real names. The purpose was to see how many young friends we could make and how much personal information we could get from them without any correspondence.

Watch Part One of our story by clicking on the video tab above. Watch Part Two with Austin's story here.

 

New teenage friends started accepting us at a rapid rate. Within hours, one local teenager accepted me as a friend, and I was able to get the one piece of information that led me to his home. Around 8 p.m. on a weekday, I showed up at his front doorstep.

 

Laura: "Hi Michael?"

Michael: "Uh hum."

Laura: "Hi do you know who I am?"

Michael: "Um no I do not."

Laura: "Well I’m on your Facebook account."

Michael: "Um huh"

Laura: "And I'm also a reporter with NBC 17."

Michael: "Yes m'am."

 

When I told Michael Watkins' parents what I found on their son's Facebook page, they invited me over to let him know that he wasn't very hard to find. Claire and Gregory Watkins made sure Michael was home to answer the door when I arrived.

 

Claire: "You're busted, you are so busted. Yeah, haven't we talked about this? Haven't we talked about being safe on the Internet and what you should and shouldn't do?"

Michael: "Uh huh"

Claire: "So what happened? What did you give out that you shouldn't have given out?"

Michael: "I accepted somebody as a friend that I didn't know."

 

But it was more than just accepting me as a friend. Within hours I knew Michael's high school, hobbies and interests, political views and his phone numbers. A quick reverse search of his home phone number provided enough information to lead me to his doorstep 24 hours after we met online.

 

"I was shocked and very angry, very angry,” Claire said. "I'm surprised. That's amazing how quickly you got all that. I mean I know they can post certain things on there I’ve seen what they can post and I think my concern is that you knew how to find it I mean you could have been anybody."

 

And Michael's Facebook page isn't out of the ordinary. Out of 150 of our Facebook friends, Sergio Quintana and I found 18 with home phone numbers listed, 45 with cell phones and six with actual addresses marked clearly on their pages. Some of my new teen friends questioned my identity but kept me as a friend even when I didn't respond. Michael got his answers from me, face-to-face.

 

"I was just like freaking out I was like wait, I just saw this person on Facebook like a day ago and now she's standing at my door with a microphone and I just knew I was probably caught for something,” Michael said.

 

When I asked Michael thinking back if he still would have added me as a Facebook friend, he told me no way.

 

"How easily you found where I lived and my phone number and too many things about me, it was just kind of weird and I don't want other people doing that to me,” Michael said.

 

"Michael is very well adjusted and very comfortable in his own skin, has lots of friends, straight A student, a great kid. My concern is the child that's lonely and abused and doesn't have parents that they can feel they can come to, that they're going to reach out and be led astray,” Claire said.

 

Michael said in light of his experience with me, he'll take some of his personal information off of his Facebook page. He laughed and forgave me for getting him in a little trouble with his mother, who said they’re going to have a long talk.

 

"I think he knows what could have happened, I think this has been a great lesson for him,” Claire said.

-- Laura Barron, NBC17 Reporter

 

 

With online social networks like Myspace and Facebook teenagers can spend hours keeping track of their friends, and sharing the minute by minute happenings of their day.

 

It's a never ending conversation online.

 

But what teens often don't realize is that the information they share online can be used by other people to track them down.

 

Through our investigation we were able to collect personal information from high school students that included; home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, home addresses, personal e-mail addresses and other info.

 

One student we were easily able to track down was a sophomore at a Raleigh high school named Austin.

 

We’re only using his first name to protect his full identity.

 

We showed up at his home a few days after he made us his friend online.

 

“Hi Austin,” I asked as the teenager opened his front door.

 

"Yes."

 

"How are you?"

 

"I'm good."

 

"You invited me to be a friend of yours on Facebook."

 

"I, I did?"

 

Immediately after Austin accepted me as his friend we contacted his parents.

 

We told them we were able to track him down because he posted his home phone number on his profile.

 

We did a reverse search online and got his home address.

 

Austin’s mother Sheila was surprised that we were able to learn so much information so quickly.

 

“We thought we were diligent, you know we have the parental controls, the computer is out in the middle of the house, they're only allowed a certain amount of time to be on there,” Sheila said.

 

North Carolina Attorney Genera Roy Cooper has been working for years to get social networking websites to install more safeguards to protect children.

 

“We've seen it time and time again, where predators go on the internet, look for children and are able to find them, physically meet them, and exploit them,” Roy Cooper said.

 

He told us the internet is a tool that can make it easier for adults to target kids.

 

“Now with the internet and social networking sites, predators can groom dozens of children at the same time until they find that child who is emotionally ready to meet someone,” Cooper said.

 

There is good news that we uncovered as part of our investigation.

 

Many of the students that we invited as friends did not accept our invitations...

 

And one student in particular actually figured out that we were up to something.

 

Matthew is a student who was invited to be one of Laura Barron’s friends.

 

We’re only using his first name to protect his identity.

 

He wrote a message to Laura Barron and did not approve her as a friend.

 

In his message he wrote, “Um, found you, you're a reporter for NBC 17, why are adding all these kids?”

 

He told us he was suspicious about being contacted by an adult he had never met, so he did some digging.

 

“I Googled her name, and she popped up under NBC and so I read her bio, and then I compared the two and the information lined up,” Matthew said.

 

His mother Norma tells us she was reluctant to let Matthew have a Facebook account.

 

When she did, he was not allowed to post any personal information and she also checks in regularly on his account.

 

“I too now have a Facebook account, just so I can go on and look and see what my child is seeing and talking about with his friends,” Norma said.

 

Back at Austin's house, his parents have made him change his profile.

 

“It just like feels embarrassing because I was caught accepting a request to an adult who just happened to be undercover,” Austin said after we surprised him at his front door.

 

His parents are also considering opening an account of their own, to keep better tabs on their teenager.

 

-- Sergio Quintana, NBC17 Reporter

 

 

Facebook, The nation's second-largest social networking Web site, is now taking steps to protect younger users.

 

The Web site has agreed to new safeguards aimed at protecting children from sexual predators and cyber bullies.

 

There are an estimated 70 million Facebook users, and the site is very popular among younger users because it started out as a closed network for high school and college campuses.

 

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper says that made Facebook a magnet for predators when it opened up to users of all ages a few years ago.

 

“If you are an adult with bad intentions and you go on these sites and you try to collect information about children, unfortunately you can do it very easily,” Roy Cooper said.

 

Automatic warnings will be added for underage users about displaying personal information.

 

Facebook has also agreed to display safety tips to users more prominently.

 

And, it will aggressively remove inappropriate groups or users from the site.

 

A statement released by Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly he said: "Building a safe and trusted online experience has been part of Facebook from the outset."

 

Roy Cooper said the agreement will help protect children, but he says they are also working with Facebook to install tools that help verify the real identities of their users.

 

“They've told me that they don't want an anonymous situation. They don't want people coming on our site who are anonymous. They want to know who people are. That's part of what their site is about,” Cooper said.

 

He said identity verification would help separate adults from children online.

 

The agreement announced Thursday is being supported by Roy Cooper and 47 of his fellow Attorneys General, as well as officials from the District of Columbia.

 

The only State Justice Department not to support the agreement is Texas.

 

They want a speedier adoption of identity verification tools for Facebook and similar sites.