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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."
...asks the anonymous coward. We can see from your credendials that you're a smart youngster, but my point was that youngsters will find a way to do it anyway, so the blame should be placed on where it belongs if something goes wrong. It's not facebook's fault if a dirty old man pretends to be a hawt chick and a kid is stupid enough to believe it(though the old bastard should definitely be punished as well) -- that kind of thing would be a hell of a lot less likely to happen over the phone. If they do something stupid then they will be punished. Better a slap on the wrist or a few hours of community service than an excuse for the government's "think of the children" intrusions to ruin things for the rest of us. Besides, my idea was only a general template, instead of your knee-jerk reaction you could have suggested that reasonable exemptions could be made for academic or vocational use.