Facebook has threatened to sue the Daily Mail after an article published on Wednesday falsely claimed that teenage girls on the website are likely to be pressured for sex almost instantly after creating a profile.
The British paper apologised for the mistake and changed the headline so it reads "I posed as a girl of 14 online" rather than "I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook." The author, Mark Williams-Thomas, had actually been using a different social network.
A UK spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that the company was considering suing because of " the brand damage that has been done."
Charles Garside, assistant editor of the Daily Mail, said incorrectly citing Facebook as the social network was "a matter of miscommunication."
The Facebook spokesperson, however, said the company feared permanent damage to its reputation.
"If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us," she said.
