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

For God's sake

[Rik Sweeney]

Maybe Facebook should also be made to come round to people's houses and teach them how to wipe their arses properly.

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

[Grimbleton]

I agree. I'm sick and tired of the government stepping in where they shouldn't. Aw, little Susy sent out naked pictures to her friends? Great, let's educate her and her parents, not hold the service she used to perform an action with responsible. Where's the personal responsibility these days?

Texas, huh

[patio11]

You know, any time its 49 to 1 on states in America, you can be pretty sure that Texas is sitting out. Or perhaps Utah. Just once, I'd like to have a boring, milquetoast state like Rhode Island try to have a bit of a personality. "We're not a state! We're a Commonwealth! And we won't be having with any of your Internets!"

Hey, it could happen.

Age of majority

[NoobixCube]

I've always thought the broad-sweeping American-influenced use of age 18 on the internet is amazingly arrogant and blind. 18 is the arbitrary age of majority in some western cultures. In other western cultures, it's 21. In Japan (and perhaps other Asian countries, though I don't know), it's 20. Age of majority is probably even lower in some countries, and even higher in others.

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

Re:beginning of the end?

[FiestaFan]

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). What about someone who is 18 sending a message to someone who is 17? Or a grandmother sending her 13 year old granddaughter a message? Or a myriad of other circumstances?

except

[nguy]

Except that the age of consent is actually lower in many countries, even if their age of majority is the same or higher.

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.

Re:Radical solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

HOW exactly was THIS modded UP?! I mean WHAT?! Even as AC, I am shocked.

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.

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?

Lets nationalize the age of consent.

[elucido]

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.

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.

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. :)

GoodLuckWithThat

[keirre23hu]

Because noone could ever get another free email from Yahoo/MSN/Google/RediffMail/DMX/insert free email provider here and register for a new account if they are operating under nefarious purposes, you know, like spammers do.

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.

"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."

Re:Radical solution:

[Wavebreak]

There's such a thing as being overprotective, and this is it.

Re:Radical solution:

[digitig]

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. Because growing up is about learning to live in the adult world. If we keep kids wrapped in cotton-wool and safe from the world until their 18th birthday, when you turn them loose they just won't be able to deal with what they encounter. Parenting, education and so on are largely about getting the kids used to the risks of real life, in a controlled way. Yes, that has its own risks -- kids will have to be exposed to the dangers of the real world in order to learn to cope, and sometimes they will fail to cope. So the risks need to be managed and controlled, but we must be aware that if we eliminate risk kids won't learn to deal with it. There will be tragedies, but that's because life is dangerous, not because we've under-legislated.