WASHINGTON- Facebook Inc. attention is being called by Consumer Reports Publisher with regards to the issue that there are still many children under 13 years who are active in their accounts which they considered as a sign on the networks failure to implement better ways to keep those kids out of this popular social network.
However, Mar Zuckerberg, Facebook Chief Executive said that it is in their vision to make use the social networking sites to be used by children in learning. They have plans of making the site not just for socialization purposes but as well as an educational tool for he believes that better education could only be harnessed in the younger years.
“That will be a fight we take on at some point,” Zuckerberg said at an education forum this week, according to Fortune magazine. “My philosophy is that for education, you need to start at a really, really young age.”
In response to their request of keeping off kids out from Facebook, the company also is concern for some changes when it comes to federal laws. Limits are bounded in the federal law which set rules for information to collect and to share by the preteens and out form the said federal law, the networks policy that its member must be 13 years old above was born.
Concerned people and organizations said that they are only after the security and privacy of the children for these kids don’t know and are not yet aware of the possible consequences of every photos and information they will be sharing in this huge network connecting millions of people across the globe. On the latest survey, there is still an approximate 7.5 million who are under 13 years of age who got an active account on Facebook.
Just take into the picture a student in New Hampshire, at age 13 she posted it on her Facebook wall her very wish, and that is for Osama Bin Laden to put his math teacher into death. That statement became the reason why the child was suspended. And it’s an implication how this kind of system can make or break a child’s dream if not properly guided.
Prior to that, Consumer Union had been telling that Facebook must work diligently and effectively in order to work on the privacy of its over 20 million users who are younger than 18 years old.
Letters were sent to Facebook with regards to this concern. On a hearing held, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said it was “indefensible” for Facebook to have a man power of 100 personnel who look over to the accounts and activities of 600 million members.
In response, Facebook said that part of their policy is that they had already shut down the accounts of the those they have identified lying about their real age, especially the children whose age is below 13.
Meanwhile, Facebook admitted that to provide the age restriction policies is really difficult to pursue and that “there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don’t circumvent a system or lie about their age.”
In a forum for education, Zuckerberg made mention that the restrictions for children’s usage on their sites is keeping them out from knowing how and what are the impact of their site to the young ones. He added that if only restrictions will be lift, it will be their chance to know where to start working and to take safer precautions to protect the young ones.
