THE MAJORITY of women posting the photos said they did so after falling out with their friends, while nearly a third said they were taking revenge on people who had done the same to them.

Two fifths of women also admitted deliberately posting photographs of their friends without make-up. Even when asked to permanently delete the unflattering picture from Facebook, a fifth of women said they had refused to do so.

The survey of 1,500 women aged over 18 by Mymemory.com, a photo gift website, adds to growing evidence that people use Facebook to embarrass or humiliate their friends.

While people can remove their names from pictures, they cannot delete the photograph.

Facebook has refused to get involved in the disputes, saying that unless photos have broken the site’s terms and conditions, individual users must find the solution amongst themselves.

Three quarters of women said they routinely "de-tagged" photos of themselves if they did not like the pictures, while two thirds polled said they would be "angry" with a friend for uploading unflattering pictures of themselves.

Rebecca Huggler, co-founder of MyMemory.com, said: “The etiquette of tagging friends in photographs on social networking sites is a tricky one to master, and with so many pitfalls, we wanted to look into women’s relationships with the photographs they upload to the sites in question.

"To see that so many women deliberately commit ‘photo sabotage’ and upload unflattering pictures of friends is somewhat surprising, particularly when you consider how many said they’d be mad if the same was done to them.

“Photo sabotage is never kind, but I think we’ve all seen pictures on social networking sites that we know the ‘victim’ won’t be happy with. It’s always a good idea to check with your friends before uploading; they’ll thank you, and it could prevent some serious fallout.”

Last month, psychologists at the University of Bath found that women are more attracted to social networking websites than men, who prefer gaming and gambling sites.

The research, which looked at the differences between what the genders enjoyed doing online, discovered that men are more likely to visit entertainment, betting, games and music websites.

However, women are more attracted to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)