How does Facebook know who your friends are? It's a mystery that has nagged users since at least 2011, when the Irish Data Protection Commissioner conducted a full-scale investigation into the issue. But four years later, there's still a lot of confusion and misinformation about what Facebook's doing when it "finds" your friends.

Did it scrape your phone for names and numbers? Run a reverse-image search of your picture? Compile a "shadow" or "ghost" profile on you over a period of years, just waiting for you to log on and "confirm" its guesses?

Alas, Facebook's actual process isn't actually that sneaky or malicious. In fact, it involves this pretty complex academic field called ... network science.

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The UK Safer Internet Centre have now produced and published three brand new checklists – for Twitter, Snapchat & Instagram, with the same style and format as their hugely popular Facebook checklist. (via Kent esafety)

Read more at Kent Esafety.

 It's sparked frightening headlines and warnings from police departments around the world - but there's no evidence that a social media "game" that encourages children to disappear is anything other than a rumour that's got out of hand. "Game of 72" - a social media challenge where kids are allegedly told to disappear for 72 hours by their friends.

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The NSPCC continues to provide comprehensive support for parents and carers to help them understand the challenges and opportunities of socialmedia for their children.

Read more on the NSPCC's resources and support here

Why are people so mean on the Internet? It's a question we have been trying to answer for more than a decade, but the matter seems to be reaching a cultural boiling point.

Read the New York Times article here

Disturbing, explicit and also moving and poignant 17 min film about teenagers, Facebook, trust and relationships.

Due to the graphic nature of some of the images it is unlikely this video would be appropriate to use in schools but will help adults who work with young people have a clearer understanding of the 'flitting attention span and lack of true connection in digital culture.'

Watch here.