A representatives from a social networking website and a popular culture website editor have appeared before the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon.Richard Allan, director of public policy for Europe and Middle East at Facebook, and Camilla Wright, co-founder and director of Popbitch, both gave evidence to the judge.Allan, appearing first, told the inquiry that the website's "ecosystem" helped to police online activity. He said: "When [people] do something on Facebook, it's literally in front of their friends and family."We find the strongest protection is that community of users. We have an 800 million strong Neighbourhood Watch system."He told the inquiry that 30 million of these worldwide users were from the UK. Allan said users had a more meaningful experience on Facebook if they operated under their real name instead of using a pseudonym. He added: "We have a security team that is constantly looking for the people trying to get around the system."We've created a platform on which people should be free to speak, as long as they do that within our rules."Allan said Facebook had a three-option policy for dealing with complaints: encouraging users to sort out disputes between themselves, involving a third-party and resorting to site moderators made up of trained staff. He said privacy, defamation and intellectual property claims were among the most common complaints.He added: "The ability to copy digital material instantaneously does represent a new set of challenges."Lord Justice Leveson questioned the ability of newspapers to lift photographs from individual profiles without permission. Allan said it was a subject of fierce debate.He said: "I'm afraid once they've taken the photo and copied it off to somewhere else...then there's nothing at that stage that Facebook can do to recover that content."He said users were often uncomfortable about information posted on the site being editorialised and published by the press.He added: "I can see there is potentially a gap now between individuals citizens ability to take action about misuse of their data, where it's been copied digitally from the internet."Allan said Facebook is becoming a major distribution channel for traditional media content. He said: "Many newspapers now will use Facebook applications for people wanting to comment on their site... They found that people commenting in their real identities will engage in a better discussion than they would if they were commenting as 'Angry of Tunbridge Wells'."When asked about the future of media regulation he said Facebook was "familiar with dealing disputes between people about content on a very large scale". Allan added: "I would offer some words of caution about the thresholds you apply...so you are not unable to cope with the volume."It would be important to distinguish editorialised published content from what you might call chatter on the internet".He told the inquiry it would be impossible to prevent users spreading names and gossiping online as they do in real life without curtailing services and "shutting down the internet".According to Allan, current changes would allow users to decide the shelf-life of their information. He said: "When we’ve gone through that transition, any user will be able to see any content they have posted on Facebook and with a click, they can delete it."Facebook is under an enormous amount of scrutiny. That huge user base means people are very willing to come forward if they have concerns about the platform."He added: "It's very much about what you wish to share with a group with which you wish to share it".Popbitch's Camilla Wright followed. She told Leveson her stories are designed to entertain and inform the newsletter's 350,000 subscribers. She added: "It's the weird little details in popular culture that I think we as humans respond to."Wright said stories came from a circle of 200 to 250 trusted sources, unsolicited email tips and the website's message boards. She said: "We've had some amazing stories sent in from anonymous stories that turn out to be 100 percent true."Reading on the internet...is different somehow to reading traditional media. The internet has evolved so that it is a two way conversation between reader and writer. "Readers expect to be involved in shaping the stories."She said Popbitch is an entertainment product trying to poke fun at the world of celebrity that used humour as an "extra defining process" for publication. She said: "Things are written in a tongue-in-cheek manner. You would probably take it differently than if it was written in a national newspaper."She added: "I think people will chatter about and scrutinise public figures as and when they choose to. "We look at who's making themselves influential, and if so, are they living up to that. Beyond that it's very difficult to say where a line is, but that's a good place to start."Carine Patry-Hoskins, junior counsel to the inquiry, asked whether individual privacy was taken into consideration. Wright said: "Somebody can say they want their life to be private but live it quite publicly."She added: "You can't choose when you're public and choose where you're private."Kate Middleton - she's never really uttered a word about what she buys, where she shops, and yet millions and millions of pounds of the economy are apparently dependent on people wating to resemble [her]."She told the inquiry Popbitch had made five or six apologies since 2000, and had paid damages to actor Max Beesley over a libellous story published in 2007.She told Leveson the case taught her not to get things wrong, and to resolve complaints as quickly as possible.Wright acknowledged that the newsletter was bound by UK media law. She said: "We're not part of the PCC and were not a newspaper but I am aware of the code."If you are asking people to put their faith in what you're writing, then you owe it to them and to yourself, to have high standards."She said the definition of public interest was "not fit for purpose" in contemporary culture.She added: "The people who have possibly greater influence over the public come from a much wider pool."Wright told the inquiry tabloid and broadsheet journalists passed on stories to Popbitch but that she avoided using the newsletter for this purpose. She added: "It hasn't happened often and not for sometime, i think now there are very easy ways for people to get stories on the internet through social media."Leveson asked her if a common set of standards and consultation body would be useful for Internet publishers. She said: "I guess something to think of is how many internet publishers are going to think of doing this, how many are going to take the opportunity of being a potentially global enterprise."Technology is constantly evolving. Who considers themselves a journalist, who considers themselves a broadcaster, who considers themselves a blogger - the world is changing as these platforms change."