Todays Wall Street Journal has an article with a quote from a Facebook Rep suggesting they may be working on a version of Facebook for kids under the age of 13yrs old. By now you all know the legal age of kids on Facebook has to be 13yrs. Not going into the why or wherefore, done it before, see previous post re: COPPA.
I just posted a comment on a LinkedIn group about this. Here’s a longer version of it .
It greatly concerns me as a mum of a 12year old and as a Social Media consultant and Cyber Safety Advocate that there is discussion around a possible Facebook platform for children under 13yrs old. A lot of other Cyber Safety Advocates are worried too, but some commentators are taking the “get them started early and safely under adult supervision” argument, which I don’t think makes sense at all. Using that argument we could get our kids drinking alcohol under age “safely” driving cars underage “safely” There’s no logic, and no proven studies to say that getting children started early on social media leads to improved behaviour or awareness on social media, there are also recent studies that show that getting kids started on Alcohol under their parents supervision does not help curb binge drinking either, (didn’t with me….hope mum’s not reading this!)
Many pundits are also saying that if this Facebook for kids platform includes enforced Adult supervision that that’s got to be a good thing…Cough…sorry..but …Adult supervision is only as good as the Adult giving it. I’m sorry to be so harsh, but as a Cyber Safety Consultant, I’ve met way too many lovely well meaning mums and dads who think they are adequately supervising their children on computers and Facebook who are totally hoodwinked, with their kids having alternate accounts that parents don’t know about, bullying other children that the parents just don’t see, provocative pictures from 12 year old girls being posted, and worse…porn downloaded at 11yrs old.
Many of the parents I present my talks to, haven’t got any idea how extensive and complex the safety/privacy settings are in Facebook for creating an even near “private account” even for their own adult accounts, and many of these parents have open public accounts and are unaware of it, and have no idea why they should be concerned. When I do have the opportunity to take them through all the settings many of them are horrified. This is not surprising, and I don’t blame the parents, Facebook privacy settings are complex. We all know, that only one person in your circle has to have an open public account and there is no privacy. In fact lets be clear…..there is no privacy in Facebook, only versions of it.
I’m happy with my 12 year old using email, and Skype and thats it! He is incredibly popular at school, in fact voted by his peers as the class captain, and very very social, and he’s NOT being left out, or missing Facebook, (and yes I’m an awful gushing mum, but would be easier if he were a loner to defend)
Please! Can we just let kids be kids for a bit longer, they get enough loss of privacy when their parents post their pictures on social media.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in comments.
To report an underage child on Facebook go Here:
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Thanks for this post Leonie. Not enough people ask the questions you’re asking.
I agree with most of your points here, particularly thorny elements like Facebook’s record on privacy and lack of duty of care.
You are I are both a fan of teaching and supporting critical media literacies (including privacy literacies) for kids early on. The more they dive in and learn the mores and realities of the web, the better equipped they are to deal with uncomfortable or threatening behaviours.
I don’t consider Facebook a trustworthy environment or company, and this move doesn’t surprise me at all. They need new users, as their current user base atrophies. Their model requires fresh blood and we’re seeing trends that must concern them – namely, that younger people are less interested in the platform as it’s become the online home for parents and grandparents. Nature’s on our side in that regard 🙂
Facebook’s ridiculous “real name” policies (which are quite transgressable for anyone inclined), already mean that younger people share comments or content that creates problems for them at work, or at school. The discoverability of that data is already breeding cottage industries devoted to helping people clean up evidence of their youthful messes.
Kids should be allowed to be kids, to fail and live large. They should have the right not to have youthful choices that are now on show and monetised by Facebook come back to haunt them. This is already a problem of our age – now we want to add 0-13 years of content to that?
To me this is probably the biggest concern with this move. Kids < 13 cannot be asked to publicly identity themselves by their real names. For those few predators out there, it'd be a gold mine.
A FB platform that age group must be non-searchable, non discoverable and, not associated with real names. Ownership of data must reside with parents. The majority of platforms for very young users demand anonymity, as well they should. They are actively community managed and moderated. Will Facebook do this?
I don't have an easy answer, but I do consider Facebook more of a threat to children that the users of Facebook themselves (though there's clearly plenty of idiots out there). We already have teenagers and some adults who let Facebook monopolise their intimacies and personal content. We need to be diversifying our online lives, partciularly our social lives, as much as possible. Warehousing one's life in one spot creates a worrying singular point of failure.
Wholeheartedly agree with your point about blind trust in letting adults manage younger people in this context. Some would do a great job, but many wouldn't have a clue how to negotiate those challenges. I haven't seen evidence that FB wants to support or empower users meaningfully, so I doubt they'd offer any scaffold to help this mentorship. Thinking kids will be ok on their own, or with some older people around, is akin to the idea that communities don't require moderation, that they successfully self-moderate – naive and not true.
We need to challenge the monoculture and methods of Facebook far more, and while they're entitled to make a play for younger users, I think we're accountable to interrogate everything about that effort.
As well as keeping our kids safe, we have a responsibility to introduce them to a *wide* and full web. If FB's rhetoric about 'openness and connectedness' was authentic, they'd be up for that conversation and a debate that would be good for all of us.
Thankyou for your well considered comment Venessa.
Facebook’s lack of transparency is a huge issue. It’s not in their interest to tell us in understandable language what they are doing with our data.
Your comment about community moderation is very true. I’ve just uploaded a podcast on Mummy bloggers being bullied on Blogs in Comments. http://digitalbreezes.com/2012/06/08/mummy-bloggers-being-bullied/ It is very clear that Adults also need moderation, and are in many cases a poor example for the youth of today.
Yes let kids be kids. I advise kids to use handles when playing games online, and your point about Facebook Real Name policy, goes against this protection of privacy. Of course Facebooks stock price will go down if handles are allowed. The reliability of their stats and data will fail.
I wonder how Facebook will change if it’s still around when Mark Zuckerburg has children of his own?
Hello! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could locate a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one?
Thanks a lot!
Sorry I don’t use one, look in New plugins in your wordpress plug in’s page, and search for Captcha I guess.
I hardly write comments, however I read a
few of the comments here Get Your Hands Off Our
Kids Facebook! | The Cyber Safety Lady. I do have a couple of questions for you if it’s okay. Could it be simply me or does it give the impression like a few of these comments appear like they are coming from brain dead people? 😛 And, if you are writing at additional sites, I’d like to follow you.
Could you list of all of all your social pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook
page or twitter feed?
Hi Brett, you may be reading this on a mobile device 🙂 the links you are after are on my site. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/_LeonieGSmith I also have a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/thecybersafetylady I’m on Linked in at https://www.linkedin.com/in/leoniegsmith
I think one of the comments is spam…will delete and the other hmmm can’t help really. thanks for the feedback 🙂
Great website you have here but I was wanting to
know if you knew of any user discussion forums that cover the same topics discussed here?
I’d really love to be a part of community where I can get comments from other experienced individuals that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Appreciate it!
There are some groups on LinkedIn you can join.
Awesome post.
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Get Your Hands Off Our Kids Facebook! | The Cyber Safety Lady