To not allow my nine year old daughter a facebook account?

[Lilaclion]

My eldest daughter currently thinks I'm the devil personified as I will not allow her to have a facebook account.

I do feel mean, I know that several of her classmates do have accounts, but they are clearly viewing things that are not meant for their age group.

So why do some parents think it's okay and am I being unreasonable by not allow her an account?

May I add - I don't think parents who choose to let their children have facebook accounts are bad parents at all. It's each to their own IME and each family will decide what is right for their children regarding internet access.

My eldest is only 6 so my opinion may not be as well informed as someone with a child of 9/10/11 etc.

I would rather my DS have a facebook account I was aware of than hiding it - but right now, I'd rather he not have one at all - hence my last post.

Maybe it's because I'm a youngster (early twenties), but I honestly can't believe how quickly people forget the ingenuity of children.

Okay, not all children will go behind parents backs and do what they want anyway. But a lot will, and claiming that because you are sure yours don't that no other decently raised children would is beyond naieve.

I was 16 when I first caught a bus, because my mum wouldn't let me before as it wasn't safe. my friends showed me what to do after we met in town to have a day shopping there. If I'd told my mum we were getting a bus elsewhere sh'ed have gone spare. I hadn't been allowed a phone until a few weeks before either, so forgot to call her mid afternoon and tell her I was still alive. So at 5pm on our way home when I finally remembered I had a phone now and called her, she was livid. Oh well. She never did find out about the 18cet films we used to watch at friends' houses, and it hasn't done me any harm.

I would hope my DS won't want a FB account by the time he's old enough to want to chat with friends (hopefully it will be old hat by then; he's 2), but if he's that desparate, as people have said, I'd rather know about it than not. By that point, I'm sure mobile phones will be more than capable of providing him with the means to decieve me should he wish, even if he doesn't have unsupervised internet access at home.

Being realistic does not make you a bad parent. On a slight tangent, neither does acknowledging that laws made in another country don't always apply to you. I mean, America is the country of legal gun ownership and the death sentence in several states. Just because it's law there doesn't mean its enshrined in stone here.

hear hear tottwriter, good post

my dd has facebook...she has had it for 2 years...but i have here password...i always check her account every other day...but i set it up...that certain things can not be sent to her....so i have blocked alot of things...

I'm with the keeping inside the law brigade. Although I'm really tempted to teach DS, 15 how to drive. He's 5'10, got a beard when he chooses and it would be so handy to have another driver in the house. His reflexes are faster than mine and he'd be very sensible and keep all the HC rules. Perhaps parents should be allowed to pick and choose which rules make their children keep, it's so much easier that way.

"I'm with the keeping inside the law brigade."

What law? It's a Ts and Cs issue between two civil parties. The venue in the Ts and Cs is Santa Clara, and although there are solid reasons to believe that the current UK/USA extradition treaty is a very bad thing, even its writ doesn't run to extraditing minors to California to face civil actions.

The only reason that clause is the Ts and Cs is because under COPPA, US residents who are under 13 (and their agents, who for practical purposes will be their parents or guardians) have additional rights against people who collect private information, and the data collector has to satisfy additional requirements on how they store and process it. In particular, it requires verifiable parental consent. That clause in the Ts and Cs renders this null and void: "I am 12 and you have misused my data", "Sorry, you shouldn't be here."

The same clause is in the Ts and Cs for iTunes (hands up the people who are worrying about the 13 cut-off for FB but not iTunes) and for almost all other US websites that collect personal data. There are exceptions, such as Google, who don't collect verifiable parental consent and don't (so far as I can see) exclude children from signing up for account. Their argument would be that they are only collecting an email address; the counter-argument would be that it's now widely accepted, even by Google, that a search history is private information, and it's certainly sensitive private information under the DPA.

Whatever, claiming this is "the law" is over-stating it, to put it mildly. It's a US provision that has the effect of nullifying a US law enactable only by US residents for accounts signed up to in the US with (for practical purposes) US operators. Teaching your children to respect the law is one thing; teaching them to jump at shadows is quite another.

So if it's not a law, why can they delete your account if you are under 13?
Are we just talking about whether you should fib about your age in order to access something you are told you are too young to have?

"So if it's not a law, why can they delete your account if you are under 13?"

Because they're a private company and can do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't break any laws. They can delete any account they want, for essentially any reason, and you have almost no redress. They in this context is Facebook, not the authorities.

Excellent post tokyo. There seems to be an increasing perception that private companies' individual t&c are enshrined in law when actually aside from in scale, it's no different to a tutor electing to only teach 11+ students instead of all primary age students.

"There seems to be an increasing perception that private companies' individual t&c are enshrined in law"

Indeed. People claiming to be teaching "respect for authority" with reference to the Ts and Cs of private companies is fairly dystopian.

Here here Tottwriter.

"So if it's not a law, why can they delete your account if you are under 13?"

For the same reasons that I can delete accounts on a forum I moderate. Their gaff, their rules.

On a more cautionary note: if you ever FB from a mobile, check the address book app. If you've not told it not to, it'll've published your mobile number to all your FB friends...

We had this drama with my DD a while ago (she's 9 also) and she set up an account on FB while knowing she was not allowed. The reason for this was repeated peer pressure from one of her friends, who does have a fb account, also aged 9, complete with pics of her posing with makeup on, and despite her mum's protestations that her page was private, she obviously forgot to include pics in that, so anyone could view her child in provocative poses and skimpy outfits, all justified by the fact that the child in question 'does dancing. '

When I found out I hit the roof and dd was grounded and given a major dressing down. The age limit on fb is there for a reason and I think teaching your child to lie about their age on the internet is seriously dodgy territory.

Personally I believe my child needs a mother, not a friend and I don't feel the need to be 'liked' by her all the time. Sometimes being a mum involves making unpopular decisions. So she can wait till she's 13 for a facebook account, and THAT'S final!!

One issue that hasn't yet been mentioned, is that those of us who use FB do so, expecting it to be an adult environment, and posting accordingly. In the same way that I moderate my conversation in front of my friend's children, or our nephews, I do not expect a child to be present/able to access my FB posts. I am not talking about swearing, or the latest report from the orgy in the back garden, but some examples of issues might be how I feel about the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, some of the more distressing elements of the dog rescue work I get involved in (though I am very careful even with adults on this) or more complex political issues. These are things that I wouldn't want to discuss with say my nephews, at least not in that form - their parents should be able to choose the appropriate time to have say a conversation about serious illnesses, not be bounced into it. If a child is allowed unsupervised access to the net, then fine, but it's important that parents realise that an adult environment is not necessarily one that is anti-children, but may be one where children may not see or hear things to their liking.

I would also expect that in the fullness of time there would be parents complaining about posts that were too explicit and expecting a child friendly level of discourse. I understand this has already happened in the States.