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Over 7.5 Million Facebook Users Are Under 13
liqs8143 writes "Of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook in the past year, 7.5 million of them were younger than 13, according to projections from Consumer Reports' latest State of the Net survey. Facebook's terms of service require users to be at least 13 years old. Also among this group of minors using Facebook, more than 5 million were 10 and under. Consumer Reports' survey found that their accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents, exposing them to malware or serious threats such as predators or bullies."
I'm 12 years old and what is this?
There is no way it is that few.
Facebook chooses advertising profit (all those users) over actively enforcing their TOS.
Facebook should be fined for this predatory practice. This is a nasty exploitation of children.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So a full third of Facebook's viewers are 13 or under. That is actually kind of a shocking statistic. I am sure glad I am not one of those new investors they recently took on. This is going to by a buy high sell low event for most of them is my guess. Facebook is following the pattern of MySpace and is about out of steam is my guess.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
That just indicates the terms of service need to be changed. There is nothing wrong with young children using a website. Does 4chan have terms of service?
OHHH NOOOEEESSS
The human desire for communication is not a pathology or an automatic problem. Why is this
..and thought "Huh, well, that explains it I guess".
'That bully, Burt poked me! waaaa....'
What's your point? It's the internet...anything goes
I thought they were _all_ under 13, at least mentally.
how many are actually under 13? I mean really.... Who puts in their correct age?
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The problem here isn't Facebook, it's bad parenting. We let our 8 and 9 year old use Facebook. The computer is in the living room where we can see what they're doing, we vet all their friends and generally keep an eye on things. They're not stupid, if they don't know someone who requests their friendship, they block them straight away without us having to intervene. They thoroughly enjoy playing a lot of the games on there and why shouldn't they?
Facebook isn't inherently evil and something that we should keep kids away from. They've got just as much chance getting nonced up on one of the kiddy branded sites like Mushi Monsters or Panfu. Funnily enough, they haven't been.
Malware is a problem, as are sexual predators. Bullies on the other hand, can be found on any playground. Online bullies have words as their weapons, whereas the offline version use their fists. To pretend that the online variety are a special threat is ridiculous. If junior can't handle someone saying mean things about him online then he'll always be a momma's boy.
That being said, I think it is a good thing that younger people are choosing to immerse themselves in Facebook and other forms of social media.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
One of the stupider things I've seen in the past, was when an old girlfriend's parents actually created a facebook account for her 6 year old sister, then let her run free with it, complete with fully tagged photo albums, check-in locations, status updates and favourite pages (much of this information was provided indirectly by the parents through tagging).
I find it hugely concerning when a pair of adults (both of whom are middle-aged) decide to completely ignore the terms of service so they can list their both of their daughters on their profiles. This is probably the case with many young children who don't have the technical knowledge to sign up for an email account, then use the email account to open a facebook account.
Sure, it doesn't seem like facebook have gone to exceptional lengths to enforce their own ToS, but you can't say they're completely at fault.
... no matter how much they pester you for it. Because a 13-year old typically doesn't know that visitor information is not exposed in the facebook API. (Neither does the typical adult, unfortunately) So, when an app promises to give it to her, she may believe it when she is told [random dude chosen by the app] visits her profile ten times every day. That is bad for an adult, whose friends suddenly thinks he's an obsessive, creepy stalker - but if the app-clicker is underage, those people may think you're a pedophile as well.
It happened to a journalist whose blog I read, I've experienced similar things myself (though not quite that bad).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
FB says there are 500M active users per day and CR says that there are 7.5M under 13yos on FB so this makes 1.5% of total users are breaking the TOS and probably making FB breaking the law many times every second. figures are very rubbery
the internet: where the men are men, the women are men, and Over 7.5 Million Facebook Users Are FBI agents.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
If Consumer Reports has such a sophisticated method to accurately determine the age millions of of Facebook users, why don't they share their method with Facebook so they can improve their policy enforcement?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I know I may have sneered at "Think of the Children Arguments" in the past but I loathe Facebook and all it stands for so I am ready to compromise my principles in order to help ferment an unstoppable outpouring of public outrage against it.
Glen Quagmire approves this post! Giggity giggity goo! Heh heh, alright!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Oh my nursing Athena. Is this what Slashdot has some to? Really? This is the quality of stories we get? "Exposing them to" -- gasp-- "malware or" -- gasp -- "serious threats such as predators" -- gasp-- "or bullies."
Give me a break. Where did the submitter grow up, in a test tube? With eighteen parents and doctors watching every move?
Someone please post the submitters' physical address. Please. I'd like to deliver a Darwin award invitation. Before s/he manages to escape parental supervision, stub a toe, and die from an infection of the hangnail.
Read this in the paper today. Kids think having a fb account is like having some thing out of the ordinary. They should get proper counselling from their parents about it. Who knows, this kids may even end up with teen age pregancy just coz of this ignorance from their parents.
Facebook chooses advertising profit (all those users) over actively enforcing their TOS.
Facebook should be fined for this predatory practice. This is a nasty exploitation of children.
Just as a matter of interest how do you think they could enforce it? How would you know that someone claiming to be 22 year old Mike Smith form Luton or 20 year-old Nalini Kapur from Mumbai are really the age they claim to be?
I would imagine most 13 year olds are more up to speed with the dangers of malware, etc., than most people over 40. As for other risks - certainly predators might be drawn to such places, but I would imagine that most 13 year olds would give these relatively ancient guys serious abuse - it's the 13 year old depressive loners who are looking for attention who are most vulnerable and those vulnerabilities will be rooted in their life away from Facebook, not due to Facebook. Moreover, abusers are almost always known to kids, a family member, etc.. What would be nice, however, is if Facebook did a little more for kids who are looking for help. There are unique opportunities for kids to find help when they might never have bothered.
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Get em while there young.
And how many of those minors where in countries with vastly different cultures than the US, where using the full potential of the internet at age 10 is not seen as dangerous, and where the kids have been tought to handle it?
This is a surprise?
"Over 7.5 Million Facebook Users Are Under 13 61"
Got to love Slashdot's broken layout, showing me the number of comments right there in the headline. Still, this one made me giggle:
"AMD To Support Coreboot On All Upcoming Processors 133"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I always said facebook is for children and childlike adults. what a fucking waste of time.
Hello,
Well I am friends with a rabbit and a dog on facebook. I know dog-years are 7 human years so the dog is ok, but does anyone know the rabbit-human age conversion factor?
Thanks in advance,
Bob.
In other news, millions of children are sent by their parents to school everyday where they are exposed to new ideas and serious threats such as potential predators or bullies.
how much greater are the risks than a walk down a metropolitan street? I'm getting a bit desensitized to yet another OMGZ TEH KIDZ screed. Evidence > parental paranoia, please.
Full disclosure: I'm a parent, and my 12 yr old begged for a FB account. I check where she goes online, etc. Shame on those that use the internet for the next electronic babysitter.
Over 7.5M FBI's accounts on Facebook ... and they are men.
In other news, millions of children are sent by their parents to school everyday where they are exposed to new ideas and serious threats such as potential predators or bullies.
So ?
Should they be exposed to even more dangers ?
Just because i smoke tobacco (a serious threat that maybe kills me one day), should i explore the idea of skydiving without a parachute ?
There are new ideas , but also serious threats on the internet for kids .
FTFA: "âoeWhatâ(TM)s even more troubling was the finding from our survey that indicated that a majority of parents of kids 10 and under seemed largely unconcerned by their childrenâ(TM)s use of the site.â
But, we're telling them to be scared. Why aren't they scared? These parents must be the same insane lunatics that use craigslist when you know you will be killed if you do. These kids could be bullied, you know. Unlike real life, there's no way to avoid the person or never hear what they say on facebook. They also could have their identity stolen which will just trash their credit score, and if you've got heavy credit card debt at 13, you'll be paying it off the rest of your life.
You should do as the article suggests and have facebook delete the account using the "report an underage child" form. Because a child needs to feel secure that they can tell you anything and know that you'll report them to the relevant authorities immediately. This proves to them how much that they can trust you.
This sentence no verb.
And 23.5 million other users appear to be cats!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Cut down to only allow email@schoolname.edu accounts like the good ole days.
Pedobear approves!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Most of them list their current occupation as FBI Investigator....
Ok, someone please tell me that this whole Facebook thing is a fad. Please. I'm beggin here. So, by it's own name facebook is all about your own face. That makes it totally Narcissistic. Twitter is all about tweeting your bits of info to as many people as possible, Root word here being twit? So, put them together and your a narcissistic twit if you use these services? Not really trolling here, trying to get a feel for what others here think about Facebook and Twitter.
This aint Daytona and you aint Dale Earnhardt. So stop trying to draft on Interstate 40.
...Facebook itself.
I hope the feds don't come down on you for illegal access to a computer for violating Facebook's terms of service.
You should be fine as long as you don't live in one of the states covered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Circuit Court of Appeals.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you have an obviously legitimate reason to "friend" the kid and it's obvious to anyone reading the kid's page OR your page that there is a legitimate connection, then I don't see the problem.
Obvious reasons:
* You are a relative.
* Your kid is also a friend of the kid AND nobody will wonder why your kid and this kid are friends.
* You are using an "official" account like you are a schoolteacher using a special, non-personal account for official school business and you've friended all of your students.
Personally, I recommend middle- and high-schools not use "public" social-networking sites for official direct interaction with students. Either set up a "private" site or use some other means of communications, or limit Facebook/etc. communications to parents' accounts rather than students' accounts.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Previous slashdot article: http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/03/23/1237215/Facebook-Bans-20000-Kids-a-Day
It was 3.6 million in March, now its 7.5. Riiight.
Consumer Reports' survey found that their accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents, exposing them to malware or serious threats such as predators or bullies."
How do they (Consumer Reports) know who's unsupervised? And how does parental supervision help from malware(etc) exposure? Most kids know more about computers than their parents these days. Additionally, there are plenty of predators and bullies right in the schools they go to and neighborhoods they live in..
Punch a bully in the face, they'll never bully you again... No parental supervision required.
i personally am always wondering what the numbers on 4chan are, maybe i should do a survey, i am sure they will all answer correctly.
First, this report should have been published 3 years ago as there were flock of underage users registered with FB. Second, 7.5 million users is an understatement.
Facebook's terms of service say "no one under 13" (paraphrased). That's why this is news. Has nothing to do with "good" or "bad" parenting. Facebook would have to adhere to a whole slew of laws regarding children.