The article about online safety at TechNewsWorld.com is a good one regarding the many moves Facebook has been taking to protect children from online predators and cyber bullies.

However, as is the case with all social networking sites, parents need to learn how to monitor Facebook and other sites like it in order to best protect their children.

Today's parental control software often features tools specifically designed to help monitor social media sites where kids and adults often co-mingle.

And it's easy to see why parental controls are needed here - social media sites are notoriously popular with online predators. Facebook itself recently helped to identify and disable the accounts of more than 2700 registered sex offenders in New York alone.

Now, imagine how many predators have pages on Facebook and Myspace and more nationwide. It's a scary thought.

Facebook is defintely taking the initiative by creating their "Safety Advisory Board," but the truth is that we can't expect them to watch over the millions of men, women and children who log on to their site every day.

This is why parents need to invest in quality parental controls, so they can monitor social media sites and make sure that their child's new "friend" isn't a predator.

The best programs will allow parents to capture usernames and passwords used to log into sites - particularly sites they didn't know about. They can also record instant messages, capture emails and attachments, and block websites as well.

And for those whose kids aren't cooperative, many can do all of the above while running completely invisible.