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Facebook Plans To End The 'No Kids Under 13' Farce

This article is more than 10 years old.

Welcome to Facebook!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is ready to have children. Not necessarily with his new wife, but on his social networking site. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is "developing technology" that would allow tykes 12 years of age and younger to poke, post, and friend with parental supervision.

The WSJ notes that this will allow the blue giant to "tap a new pool of users for revenue." More importantly, it would bring the site's policies up to speed with what's really happening there. According to Consumer Reports, there are over seven million little kiddies swarming the site already, who have lied about being 13 or older, often with their parents' help.

Facebook has been ignoring the problem until now, because of the fairly arduous process involved in complying with COPPA, a federal law protecting children's privacy that applies to any site that caters to the preteen crowd. Or, maybe it's just been insistent about the "13+ only policy" because of the uncoolness of letting the kiddies into the adults' playground. (Prepare thyself: your 8-year-old cousin may soon be scrolling through your party pics.) But lawmakers had taken note that young people were on the site and were starting to put pressure on Facebook to do something about it.

Mark Zuckerberg said last year that he hoped to bring kids onto the site for "educational" reasons. But some critics are complaining that this is a move by Facebook to exploit the nation's children. James Styer, the chief executive of child-advocacy group Common Sense Media tells the WSJ that we don't yet know the "potential pros and cons that social-media platforms are doing to teenagers."

Ready or not.... this is the digital-savvy world these kids will be living in, and they'll need to be digitally literate. Facebook may have cons, but it's better preparation for the future than staring at a television for four hours.

My colleague Larry Magid (correctly) cheers letting young'uns onto Facebook legitimately: "Whether we like it or not, millions of children are using Facebook, and since there doesn't seem to be a universally effective way to get them off the service, the best and safest strategy would be to provide younger children with a safe, secure and private experience that allows them to interact with verified friends and family members without having to lie about their age."

And Facebook will surely bring their algorithms to bear in keeping kids safe. Strange adults poking those under 13 will be flagged.

The federal law governing how websites have to treat kids under 13 basically says that parents have to consent to any kind of information collection about their children, including a kiddo's name, contact info, hobbies, and interests. Websites are not supposed to publicly display contact information in a way that makes the child trackable. And websites are not allowed to pass that info along to third parties. That means that one of the biggest challenges Facebook faces would be restricting apps and Facebook Pages from tapping info about young users.

Based on the WSJ report, it sounds like Facebook plans to offer parents free monitoring software, similar to products currently on the market such as Safely's Social Monitor, offered by Location Labs. According to the WSJ, Facebook would give parents control over who their kids friend, what apps they can add, which games they can play, and importantly, how many Facebook credits they can spend.

In other words, Facebook will help protect kids' privacy by allowing parents to invade it as fully as possible.