To expect Facebook to enforce it's own rules?

[CHC74]

Facebook has an age limit. It's 13. In theory, nobody under the age of 13 should be able to have an account, and yet there are millions of primary school kids using the website, being exposed to pages promoting hate speech, illegal activities, anorexia as a glamorous lifestyle etc etc etc as well as the risk of coming into contact with predators.

Parents try and stop their kids from signing up, but they use friends computers, mobile phones and other 'net connected devices to go against their parents wishes.

Is it unreasonable to expect Facebook to put in place some measure of age verification to ensure that under 13's don't get to use their site? Should they be forced to do so?

I'm afraid YABU.

How on earth could they actually check? It would just be impossible in practice, unless to register for a facebook account you had to be interviewed, in person, with your birth certificate/passport/other ID and two witnesses to say you were who you said you were. Not going to happen...

And the age 13 is more to do with US personal data protection rules than protecting under-13s from the content on facebook. They can find all that (and worse) elsewhere on the internet without trying very hard.

Oh, and does the hate speech etc suddenly become acceptable for over-13s?

How about a small fee to join, payable by credit/debit card? Even if it's only a few pence, it would mean that the majority of kids would have to get their parents to do it for them. At least they'd know that their kids had signed up....

As for protecting kids, OK, all of the content that's available online (and worse) IS available on the wider internet. However, it's SO easy for undesirables to find and contact kids on Facebook that it's a major child protection worry.

And no, the hate speech etc isn't acceptable for over 13's. That's why age verification is so important.

Facebook can already stop advertisers displaying ads for (say) alcoholic beverages to those users who have (by virtue of the honour system currently in place) input their age as under 18. They could easily extend this to restrict access to other objectionable content, if only they had a way of verifying age....

Unfortunately, I think the administration costs to FB for charging a joining fee would be horrific (and therefore discouraging them to do it). They'd have to retrospectively charge all its members to make sure it 'captured' any under 13s already on it.

My 8year old DS has a fb, that I set up for his 'dad' and family, so they could see photos of him, since they are not having direct contact. DS doesn't know his password, and isn't bothered about having a fb anyway. Although he does play farmtown on my fb. His profile is private etc and I chose who is on his friends list. There's far more worse things on the tv for him to stumble upon, even with parental control turned on.

They could easily put in place an automated solution for this, and by adding a couple of pence on top of the processing fee cover any additional administration charges. And yes, they'd have to retrospectively charge, but isn't it a small price to pay?

ArtyFartyPants - That's very different from a child having an "active" account and racking up hundreds of "friends" that they don't know from Adam.

or if children are determined to use fb how about an under 14 fb with limited access in force. That way the children use it for what they want to- chatting with friends etc and are not exposed to the many evils out there on the web. just a thought.

"How about a small fee to join, payable by credit/debit card?"

The site would die within a week.

I think I would rather set my childs facebook up myself and know the p/w etc... than give he the chance to do it on the sly (not that she would as she doesn't go anywhere else to get the chance) My 7y old dd has one, it is un-searchable to everyone and only has family and 1 friend from school on it(i haven't even aded my brother on it as he swears on his). She likes to play all the games on it (happy hospital atm)

mayorquimby Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing?

It is up to parents to monitor this, not FB. Under 13s should have ALL their interneet access monitored to some extent and parents need to teach children about internet safety from the outset.

The admin costs of charging would bring FB to a stop immediately. It just isn't practical.

ZeldaUpNorth - That's pretty much my point. By introducing a "joining fee" payable by card, parents could be more confident that they had knowledge of their child's Facebook presence, as opposed to them signing up without parental approval/knowledge

If FB went something else would take its place within days.

Why should FB be stopped because some parents don't fully monitor what their children are up to?

i shouldn't be penalised because of others.

I dunno,a lot of people (is it half a billion now?) would disagree. And they're hardly going to kill off their billion dollar business because some people can't stop their 13 year olds accessing it against their will.
I got rid of mine a while ago, but I have no objection to the site in principle, it's a great site and it works brilliantly.
How would facebook dying off be a good thing? millions of people enjoy it and there's nothing wrong with it.

I've heard the argument that the likes of moshi monsters is better for kids but dd didn't like the free version but i cannot afford to pay the sub fee.

I agree that parents should be more responsible for monitoring internet use.

Facebook shouldn't be stopped. It should be stopped from allowing under 13's to sign up unchallenged, when each underage registration puts them in breach of the law (albeit US law, where FB is based). Can you honestly say that you are there every time your child goes online? At friends houses? at the library? at school? on their mobile phone? on the Nintendo DSi?

CHC74 Fri 30-Sep-11 13:23:42

mayorquimby Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing?

Flippant comment - ignore!

Even putting in an automated system - and retrospectively charging members - would be an expense to FB.
Remember, FB is world-wide - they'd have to ensure the joining fee was roughly the same cost in whatever the local currency was. Some banks charge for a transaction in a foreign currency, so some people would end up paying more than others to join.
If you add a processing fee on top of the joining fee no-one is going to want to pay it. It is a small price to pay, but (some) people without children aren't going to want to fork out a membership fee to cover FB's back in ensuring everyone is as old as they say they are.
Also, it's fine getting an adult to set up the FB account for their child - but it still doesn't mean they are monitoring the usage or content. It wouldn't stop nefarious persons pretending to be underage. They'd just set themselves up a fake account as the 'child'. Unless they were actually caught/convicted of an offence, nobody would be any the wiser.

The internet is a fact of life now. No parent is ever going to be able to supervise a child every moment they are online, or install parent controls on every device with internet access.

So that makes it all the more important for parents to talk to their children about internet safety, risks, not trusting people online etc. Just as we have to talk to them about trusting/not trusting people in real life, what behaviour is appropriate or inappropriate and so on.

You can't stop facebook, just as no one could stop me from reading books my parents considered unsuitable or making friends much older than me as a teenager.

iklboo - I agree that age verification doesn't work in reverse (ie; proving that someone who claims to be 13 is actually 42) or provide a parental control mechanism.

HOWEVER, it does prevent under 13's signing up without parental knowledge, which is a big step toward protecting very young kids.

If it costs Facebook a few million, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

charging for facebook is just an absolute non-starter, no matter how fair or feasible they could make such a system the bottom line is that it would kill off the site within a week. Someone else would offer the exact same service for free.

Most schools have FB banned. Our LEA definitely does for everyone, be them children or staff.

For primary school children I can't see where they will have completely unsupervised FB access - if at a friend then their parents will be aware and monitoring (or at least in the case of DDs friends they do). At home I pop in and see what DD is doing regularly. No mobile phine and won't be til she is secondary school at earliest. No library access re internet.

Once 11-13y, so secondary I think the best route is to have open access to all your children's IT use - so you are allowed to check phone, computer, etc. And you tell them in no uncertain terms about internet safety rules.

exexpat - at least when you made friends that were older than you, you knew they were older than you.

But that's another thread.