Facebook, the social-networking web-site, promised yesterday to improve the way it handles complaints about “inappropriate content”, such as material posted by sexual predators.

The move settles a long-running investigation by the New York attorney-general and comes amid growing evidence that paedophiles use social-networking sites to find and meet young victims.

In the US the TV show Dateline NBC has exposed the practice with a series of controversial investigations entitled To Catch a Predator, in which decoys create fake profiles of underage children on networking sites and wait for alleged paedophiles to make contact and set up meetings. When the meetings finally take place, the alleged paedophiles are ambushed by TV cameras and police officers.

Yesterday’s settlement is unlikely to be the last confrontation between networking sites and American attorney-generals, who have joined forces to investigate Facebook and its larger rival, MySpace, owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times. Other sites, including Yahoo!’s latest venture, Mash, are also under scrutiny.

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“Social-networking sites, popular among young people, have quickly gained members and appeal, but also act as a magnet for those who would prey on the young,” said Andrew Cuo-mo, the New York attorney-general.

His settlement with Facebook did not involve any financial penalties. Instead Facebook agreed to begin addressing any complaint about inappropriate content within 24 hours of receiving it. The company will also tell the complaining party about the steps it has taken within 72 hours of receiving the complaint and will allow an independent examiner to oversee the process.

According to data released from Nielsen/NetRatings, the world’s most popular social-networking site is MySpace, with 60.3 million “unique” visitors during August. Facebook was second, with 19.2 million unique visitors, up 117 per cent from August last year.

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