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Facebook Agrees To User Safety Plan
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri May 09, 2008 04:18 AM
from the i'm-like-totally-18 dept.
from the i'm-like-totally-18 dept.
Facebook has reached an agreement with the attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia to develop and enhance controls to protect minors from inappropriate content. This follows a similar commitment from MySpace several months ago. The lone holdout in each case was Texas. News.com notes:
"In the deal, the social network has agreed to develop age verification technology, send warning messages when an under-18 user may be giving personal information to an unknown adult, restrict the ability for people to change their ages on the site, and keep abreast of inappropriate content and harassment on the site. While the agreement is with U.S. state authorities, Kelly said that the tools deployed will apply to Facebook's international users as well. More than half of the site's 70 million users are outside the U.S."
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Parents To Block Kids From Joining MySpace 337 comments
Reservoir Hill writes "A New York Times blog notes that attorneys general of 49 states are announcing a partnership with MySpace to fight sexual predators on social networks by letting parents submit the e-mail addresses of their children, so the company can prevent anyone from using that address to set up a profile. MySpace will also set up a 'closed' section for users under age 18 so only their established online friends can visit their pages. MySpace also promises to hire a contractor to identify and delete pornographic images on the site. 'This set of principles is a landmark and milestone because it involves an acknowledgment of the importance of age and identity authentication,' said Connecticut attorney General Richard Blumenthal." Blumenthal also actually said "If we can put a man on the moon..."
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For God's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
While Facebook might have to provide some responsibility, the 49 states and Columbia should actually tell the PARENTS to supervise their child's usage of the internet.
Re:For God's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Radical solution: (Score:2, Interesting)
Youngsters don't need the internet to do research as they could go to a library and do their research the old-fashioned way. Youngsters have cell phones and text messaging, and if they don't have that then they could play sports or participate in a myriad of activities for social bonding.
The internet is like a playboy magazine: it has articles totally unrelated to sex, and it has the pictures - would you le
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TV and radio are not bidirectional. A kid could see a murder on TV but if he thinks its cool to kill(and especially if he directly imitates the act) then he's an idiot and deserves to be punished. But, TV won't pretend to be an underage chick telling your kid to meet him at the park so that it can give him candy :)
TV may not be bidirectional, but the universe is. So if you stab someone, the consequence could be that they'd bleed to death. Another part of the universe, comprised of braincells contained within biological systems (often known as law enforcement bodies) will upon receiving this information (through lightwaves, soundwaves initiated by similar brain cells contained within any human subset of the class of organic systems etc.) would trigger a process that stimulates other brain cells in its proximity until
Re:Radical solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh sure, I am 18 now and working as search engine optimizer and PHP coder. Learning these skills from library, with years old books, etc. without the access to internet would have been kinda... impossible? People don't NEED the internet and neither they NEED moder medicine. Maybe we should also make medicine illegal for people under 18 because some can become drug addicts.
Parent
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It's an interesting opinion and an interesting point of view. There's no reason to squelch an opinion here just because you don't agree.
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Reasonable exemption for academic or vocational use? That just won't cut it, really. If I hadn't had full access to internet when I was 10 years old, I wouldn't have though "This thing is awesome! I want to make webpages too!" and asked my father to teach me how to do that (HTML). I wouldn't have started my first game reviews website (only lasted two months or so, though. ;
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Re:Radical solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Lets nationalize the age of consent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets solve this problem once and for all and come up with ONE age of consent. One age which applies to all US territories and the internet, so that adults can know when they are breaking the law.
To have no age of consent is equal to having the drinking age be different in every state and having some states have bars with minors in them and other states having bars set to be over 21.
You cannot govern this way.
Parent
Amend the constitution (Score:2)
Well get used to it. (Score:2)
retirement
health care
schooling of their children
mortgages
How are those three a function of government? I really don't understand how people who send their kids to public school can complain about government censorship related to children. Really, what do you think goes on in your schools? You can't get information in some states about what actually does go on. Worse, in a few medical issues with your children is off l
Re:Well get used to it. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're absolutely right, though. The more "liberal" (really socialist) a country gets, the more it becomes dependant on the government. You can't offer people cradle-to-grave welfare, free education, pretty much guaranteed medical help, etc, etc, without at least a small segment of your society regressing to the point of becoming children in adult bodies. If you then expect those individuals to raise children of their own, you're just asking for problems.
Parent
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Parents need the technology to do it. (Score:2)
The problem is not going to be solved just by telling parents to supervise the internet.
Yeah if the child is actually a child, as in under 15, then yes the parents should be supervising the internet for them, but what about when they are over 15 and under 18?
How can you have a chatroom or a "space" on the inernet which is not commercial, but which restricts the age limit to 18+? That is the question I'm asking. The law says that 18+ cannot have unrestricted communication with those under 18. The laws are
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While Facebook might have to provide some responsibility, the 49 states and Columbia should actually tell the PARENTS to supervise their child's usage of the internet.
I'd like to see them implement parental supervision features, so that I can easily review what my kids are doing.
The idea that parents should actively supervise and participate in their children's Internet usage SOUNDS good, but in practice it means two things: I have to spend all of my free time watching what my kids do on the net (leaving me no time for slashdot!), and I have to severely limit their Internet usage.
This is especially problematic for parents with more than one or two children. I hav
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Texas, huh (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, it could happen.
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Age of majority (Score:5, Informative)
except (Score:5, Informative)
So, for example, in many places in Europe, the age of majority is 18, but the age of consent is 15. Even in the US, there are state-by-state discrepancies.
Parent
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Well done.
What is the national age of consent? (Score:2)
Instead of having the age of consent be state by state, why don't these federal politicians who want to pass all these internet laws to ban free speech, simply pass one age of consent bill which once and for all sets the age of consent across the entire country?
It's a lot easier to protect children when we actually know what a child is in the eyes of the law.
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beginning of the end? (Score:5, Interesting)
however, i think this may be the point that we have all been dreading since the internet began -- the day we have to provide *real* identification to get access to casual (non commerce) sites.
i guess the glass-half-full part of me is wondering how facebook can verify age without compromising anonymity (and convenience for that matter).
one way to address this is to not allow unverified people to network with minors (what adults really would, anyway, unless they're spying on them or, well, the pedophiles this system is trying to address). although this is a bit ageist in that this would require minors to provide real id. this doesn't actually address the issue, only postpones full-compliance to future generations. . .
so, yeah. once this becomes commonplace (ie. when the infrastructure is in place), i can see the day when we all have to show our (real) ID at the door of every site we go to.
often it occurs to me that i will be looking back to these days and think, "wow, those were the days when the internet was free," as i hold my nationalIDcard up to the computer screen to be scanned . . .
mr c
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Facebook doesn't want anonymous users; they make that quite clear when you sign up.
Why not just create two seperate sites/internets. (Score:2)
A safe internet, designed for minors to access. This internet should require adult verification from their parents allowing their children to access the sites.
And an unrestricted unsafe internet where anything goes. And anyone who chooses to access this internet should be in no position to turn to lawsuits and press charges on people.
The key is, you can't mix the two worlds. The best way to protect minors is to build an internet for minors. The current internet is designed for adults and is unrestricted bec
It's set up like this to confuse people. (Score:2)
As far as I'm concerned. It's better to be safe than sorry. Assume 18 is the absolute minimum age, because from a legal perspective, if they are over 18 then you can't be sued as easily.
And I don't think we'd need ID's in every area of the internet. But if you want uncensored communication, because of how vague the current laws are, they can use the current laws to limit your free speech if minors are in the room.
It would be best if minors were not in the room, or if you could have anonymous / secure / priv
Sounds like a good idea to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, I see no reason for minors to be using the same social networking services as adults, and in my opinion if they are under 15 they shouldn't be on social networking sites at all.
Can anything good come from letting minors access the adult oriented internet? We don't let them into clubs and bars, so why Myspace and Facebook?
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I think you have to remember that Facebook was started for college students, then extended to high school students. This isn't a case of minors trying to strongarm their way into "the adult oriented internet". It's quite the opposite. If anything, Facebook should probably shut their doors to those not affiliated with a college or h
Tell that to the parents who blame MySpace. (Score:2)
Look, I'm not saying ban all who are under 15 from accessing the internet. If someone is under 15 and their parents give them permission to access the internet, they have every right to access the internet. Their parents should be responsible for monitoring their use of the internet if their parents believe their child has a right to access.
However the current trend is that parents expect MySpace, and adult users of MySpace to change our behavior and protect THEIR kids from the dangerous internet. It's not
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That being said, I prefer letting parents have control. My daughter isn't allowed to use myspace/facebook etc. She'll be 18 soon then she can use anything she w
Sound Bite Security (Score:3, Insightful)
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Bingo! As your kids are growing up, do not give them a computer with net access in their own room. Keep an eye on them; they are in uncharted territory and are learning as they go. Help them learn some of the dangers and pitfalls of the internet.
As they grow up, you can gradually give them more privacy with computer and internet issues (as you should be giving them in other things as well), easing them into "adulthood." I don't understand how people expect an individual that has been sheltered her entire
How do you verify a minor? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thiiiiiink of the Aduuuults! (Score:2)
Whoring out the data of the adults to the commercial partners is just fine!
Posting their private actions to all their facebook mates is just fine!
Facebook are slimy bottomfeeders who don't give a shit about their users.
But then, cui bono ? The users aren't paying Facebook, the advertisers and commercial partners are.
GoodLuckWithThat (Score:4, Insightful)
Age verification technology - how will this work without requiring giving more personal information to facebook, who will then use it to further tail advertisements, could you imagine if they had your postal address?
The only part that makes sense is alerting when minors send information to adults.... but to do that it means monitoring personal communication without a warrant, and how do they really _know_ the child and adult know each other in a non-threatening way, and on the other side, how do they know that they arent relatives or have some other benign relationship... The solution is for parents to be parents and stop letting the computer/tv/playstation/wii parent your kids for you... nobody forced you to become a parent, take some responsibility.
Minors are the exception, adults are the rule... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just add a "Kid Flag" to the browsers. Have the parents set the "Kid Flag" and have sites have to enforce rules around it.
e.g.
If there is a kids flag either the service doesn't work or has reduced functionality.
This allows parents to decide on the what age their kids are wise enough to use said services and puts the power entirely with the parents (as it should be).
Stop trying to get everyone else to be a parent. I mean it seems like teachers, police, equipment makers, service providers, etc all have to be some kind of parent for all these silly like kids that these morons keep dropping into the world.
Frankly the DNA pool might be better if some of the less intelligent kids (or kids with less intelligent parents) got taken out.
Re:Minors are the exception, adults are the rule.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or even better... have the adult population actually grow up, think rationally for once and realize... it's a computer. It can't kill you (unless you bring it into the bathtub when it's plugged in). It can't hurt you (unless you drop it on your foot). All it can do is expose you to other peoples thoughts and ideas. If being exposed to other people's thoughts and ideas is all it take
Parents are the issue! (Score:2, Insightful)
its the new priesthood (Score:2)
Then they were unethical (Score:3, Interesting)
Why did they open their product to children anyway?
They should have kept it as an adult college generaton product. I'd probably still be using it if they didn't open it to everyone.