Facebook Agrees To User Safety Plan

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."

Comments

beginning of the end?

[mrcdeckard]

before i get modded to hell, i'm usually not a doomsdayer.

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

Radical solution:

[Ethanol-fueled]

Why not just outlaw internet use for those under 18? Before you laugh or mod me troll, hear me out:

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 let a minor get a playboy as long as they promise to "just read the articles"? Well, maybe. But if shit happens then then the youngster can take the blame and the punishment. Not their parents, not their ISP, not MySpace or Facebook.

Do all underage people who drink cause trouble? No, but if they do something stupid enough to endanger themselves or others, then most of those will be caught and punished.

Re:Radical solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

The same AC here again (Hmmh... Should get registered some day as I comment about daily but really, I hate registarations of all kinds).

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. ;) ) at 13 years old age and constantly remembered how interesting this stuff is and really started coding at 16 years old. This REALLY wouldn't have happened if I could have only asked permission for vocational or academic use but it has changed my life entirely and I dare to say, to positive direction.

I started using IRC at 13 years old and met a lot of people. I also met these people in real life. Instead of telling me "never meet strangers in real life" my father had told me "IF you meet people from the internet in real life, do it in a public place, ask what they look like so you can leave after seeing them before they see you and if you don't want to tell me, tell some friend of yours what you are going to do and leave him their phone number or any other info you have about them.". I followed these advice. Some of the people I met were total psycopaths and scitshophreniacs who tried to offer me some pills and such but I refused. However, other people... Through IRC and later in real life, I met some of the most awesome people I still feel privileged to know. These people have been there for me in my most suicidal teen age angsts, helped me in school stuff when I have needed and generally helped me talk about EVERYTHING I wouldn't have wanted to talk face to face with people I see daily, such as my sexuality.

THIS would have NEVER happened with reasonable exemptions that could be made for academic or vocational use.

I have learned so much by skype conversing from late evenings to 6 am with total strangers from other side of the world. About other worldviews, about cultures, about people themselves.

Internet has had a huge positive effect on my, and certainly many others' lives, that just wouldn't have happened if it had been regulated. I see no reasonalbe alternative to progress, freedom, socialicing and learning.

So please excuse my knee-jerk reaction. :)

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[elucido]

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?

How do you verify a minor?

[clickety6]

I've seen sites that ask for adult verification via a credit card number but how do you verify that a minor is a minor? See if they don't have a credit card?

Re:Well get used to it.

[c6gunner]

Because the voters seem to be damn inclined for the government to take care of their...

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?

Apparently, NOT learning how to count :)

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.

Minors are the exception, adults are the rule...

[Manip]

Honestly why must adults who make up most of the population suffer for the minority?

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:For God's sake

[russotto]

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.

Your kids, your problem. Don't try to screw up the Internet for the rest of us in an attempt to make it kid-safe enough to reduce your workload.

Re:Minors are the exception, adults are the rule..

[computational super]

Just add a "Kid Flag" to the browsers. Have the parents set the "Kid Flag" and have sites have to enforce rules around it.

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 takes to harm you, at ANY age, the gene pool is better off without you in it.

Then they were unethical

[elucido]

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.