Jennifer Van Grove of tech-oriented Mashable! raises an eyebrow at claims that Facebook is “responsible” for a 400% increase in syphilis infections in three towns in the U.K.

Director of Public Health Peter Kelly told the Telegraph research points to sites like Facebook “making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex,” and that of the syphilis cases he saw, “several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites.”

The connection between the STD and Facebook seems stretched at best, but the Telegraph also reports, “young people in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside were 25 per cent more likely to log onto social networking sites than those in the rest of Britain.”

Read the quote in context here.

Mmm. One-fourth more likely to log in to Facebook? four times as likely to develop syphilis? It must be true!!!!

Overlooking my initial inclination to mock I’ll instead expand on Grove’s suggestion that maybe institutions in those areas ought to ramp up their sexual safety initiatives by suggesting that… maybe Facebook would be a good medium for getting those initiatives into the eyes of folks who might benefit most.

For instance as a total experiment I’ve just created the Facebook group “I have to be careful about STDs because previous generations weren’t.“

If you’ve started or know about other Facebook groups that promote positive sex safety and responsibility you can let me know in comments.