How beneficial is the Panic button for social networks

In the recent news ,UK authorities are pressurising social networking sites to install a 'panic button'for the safety of millions of users,following the death of a teenage girll by the hand of a guy who met her on popular networking site.

There has been increased pressure from child exploitation and online protection(CEOP) and child-protection services on social network to adopt the button following the high-profile jailing earlier this week of a known sex offender who raped and murdered a 17 year old girl after meeting her online.

British child protection authorities are lobbying facebook and other social networking sites to install a one click button which would allow people specially teenagers to get immediate police help if they suspect they are at risk.

The button sits within social network pages and allows users to click through to the CEOP website where they can find out information about online abusr and report incidents to the police.

But,till date only MSN and bebo have signed up among the major sites for such for such schemes.

Facebook said that while it believes the CEOP button is an 'excellent' tool for sites that have not invested in safety technologies,Facebook's existing reporting tools and services are as strong.

facebook said that the safety of their users are their top priority.It has reporting buttons on every page and continue to invest heavily in creating the most robust reporting system to support their 400 million users.It also said that,it works closely with the police forces and have trained staff on two contingents giving 24 hr support in 70 languages.

On the other hand;Jim Gample,CEO of the CEOP Centre and lead for the protecting children on the internet on behalf of the association of the police officers(ACPO),said,'We received 267 reports about activity on facebook during 2009,of which 43% were cases of suspected grooming,'he said.'However,81%were made by the people having to go to other sites to make the report.That can't be right.'

But,what I fail to understand with this hue and cry is-'really this thing going to work?'.The practicality of such system is doubtful.After installing such system also,users have to rely on the execution of punishment to the authorities only.And,in case of the extreme affair how useful this CEOP going to work?I doubt even if,the CEOP was in place of the event that occurred in Britain ,the ghastly incident could have been stopped.I feel the necessity of creating the system is as important as executing them.