(NewsCore) – A British teenager was facing a jail term Friday after he was caught confessing on Facebook to flooding a library, causing £150,000 ($248,000) damage.

The 16-year-old boy — who cannot be named for legal reasons — faced Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court in southern England on Thursday and confessed to blocking sinks in the library’s bathroom, then turning on the taps, local newspaper The News reported.

The youth initially denied the charge, but changed his plea to guilty after he was confronted with a transcript of a Facebook conversation in which he told a friend he was responsible for the flooding at the library.

Asked on Facebook if he had caused the damage on Aug. 18 last year, the youth replied, “Kind of, yeah. I’ve kept it to myself, a few mates know.”

Irreplaceable books were destroyed in the flooding. The library was closed for five months while repairs were carried out, including re-carpeting, the replacement of computers and electrical work.

The teenager will return to court on May 11 for sentencing.

We talked about privacy on Facebook in class. We all agreed that once the information is put up there it is not ours anymore. We all want to believe that we have control over our accounts, however it is not the case. Whatever we publish it goes out and it can be turned against or testify against us. In this case, although, the 16 years old denied that he flooded the library, in a  previous conversation he confessed he did it.                                                   My question is that if somebody does something culpable why he tells to anybody? Especially why he talks about it on a social network side?? I have to think that these teenagers are looking for attention and Facebook seems the perfect place to get it.  Unfortunately, they don’t think about the legal consequences of their actions.                     Reading this article through another thing comes to my mind. If this boy confessed his action to one of his friend I would like to know how much responsibility a friend has to report him. What if somebody posts even something worse on Facebook? How much responsibility we, who are his or her friends, have to report that action? Do we have to report if we read something illegal? Signing up for Facebook I don’t remember I read anything regarded to legal actions.

Facebook is launching a deals program Tuesday in five U.S.

cities, following on the popularity of Groupon and other services that offer deep discounts – for example: $50 worth of food at a local eatery for $25.

By allowing small businesses to leverage the Internet while helping consumers score great deals, these group-couponing services have become some of the fastest-growing businesses in the world.

Facebook now wants a part of that. It hopes to exploit its existing networks of friends and family when it begins testing offers in San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Austin, Texas.

Many deals sites have a social component. For instance, if you get three friends to buy a LivingSocial voucher, yours is free.

Groupon’s offers become valid only after a certain number of people purchase them.

But the deals are circulated to users through email, and the community aspect is secondary.

Facebook is hoping to change that.

“We’re building a product that is social from the ground up,” says Emily White, director of local for Facebook. “All of these deals are things you want to do with friends, so no teeth whitening, but yes to river rafting.”

Starting Tuesday, when Facebook users in the five test markets log into the site, they will see a deals insignia at the bottom of the page.

Clicking on it brings up a list of currently available offers. A user can buy one, click the “like” button to recommend it to others or share the offer with friends through Facebook’s private messaging system. When users purchase or “like” a deal, it shows up in their friends’ news feed.

That means “the discovery of the product can happen in lots of different places,” White says.

To get the program started, Facebook has enlisted 11 companies that already supply deals elsewhere. Restaurant reservation service OpenTable will broadcast offers for local eateries, while online ticket seller Viagogo will market events.

Not all offers involve discounts. Some are experiences people may not otherwise have access to, such as a backstage pass to Austin City Limits concerts, a tour of the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, or a children’s sleepover at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with live-snake demos.

In some cases, you’ll get a “friend bonus” – an additional discount – if at least one other person in your social network buys a deal.

Leveraging social tools and direct sharing among friends will be “a key to success for daily deal companies” going forward, says Lou Kerner, social media analyst at Wedbush.

This is not the first time a social network has made a foray into disseminating deals. Twitter launched its own daily deal program called Earlybird Offers last year but canceled it after just two months. Last November Facebook launched a product called Check-in Deals that allowed users to “check in” via their mobile phones when they visit certain businesses and in turn receive discounts and other special offers. Location-based social network Foursquare has a similar program.

Offers through Facebook can last anywhere from a day to a week.

The social network won’t disclose how much commission it takes.

(With Groupon and others, the deal site typically takes up to half the revenue.) There are hundreds of Groupon copycats willing to accept lower commissions, but many small businesses prefer to partner with larger companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial because they reach more potential customers.

Facebook will bring deals to even more people. While Groupon has 70 million members and LivingSocial has 28 million, Facebook has 500 million people worldwide.

Add to that the fact that many small businesses already have a Facebook presence, and the social network becomes a good fit for daily deals, says Greg Sterling, senior analyst for Opus Research.

As a share of overall Web surfing, visits to group-buying sites grew ten-fold over the past year, according to research firm Experian. LivingSocial had 7 million unique visitors in March, up 27 percent from February, making it one of the 10 fastest-growing websites in the U.S., according to ComScore.

“Groupon and LivingSocial have shown how much demand there is out there,” Sterling says. “Facebook, if they do this right, can have a big hit on their hands.”

Well, another way how Facebook wants to extend its business. I have to admit that I never heard Groupon  and  LivingSocial before reading this article. Now, I know them. I went on Google and found out what these two names covered. Websites that sell coupons and offer deals to make the every day life and living cheaper. I don’t know how other people feel about coupons and online deals, I don’t use them although I should, however, I think it is a really good business. I know these coupons offer huge savings, and I have friends who shop only if they can find a good deal online.                                                           I saw a report on Nightline, where the reporter went shopping with two “crazy” coupon collectors and they showed that how a 200 dollars shopping spree could cost 20 dollars or even less with coupons.                                                                                                                 As the article mentioned that Facebook has over 500 million users; teaming up with Groupon and LivingSocial seems a very good idea. People who use Facebook now can get their coupons and deals without leaving their favorite sides. Everything in one place. The ice on the cake is that people can have their own little businesses too. Telling about great products just to a few of their friends would make a big difference at the next shopping. Facebook do have the chance to make big money selling these coupons. This service will start, or already started last week, in five big cities, but I wouldn’t be surprise to hear that Facebook extended it nationwide.