Facebook Age Restrictions

Social media networks are required to restric children's access. But a recent study mentions that at least 25% of children aged between 8 and 12 years ignore the rules of social networks using the Internet and creating personal profiles. Their preferred site is Facebook, where user’s minimum age is 13 years.

Most of the children say that their profiles are set so that they can be seen only by friends, while 4% have profiles that cannot be viewed. Meanwhile, nine out of ten parents being aware of children's online profiles on Facebook say that they check what childrens post on this site.

Facebook intends to raise the restriction on the limit of 13, minimum age required in present users joining the network. The decision may come due to the fact that the age restriction is often violated, so there are a huge number of children under 13 who have an account on Facebook. A report funded by Microsoft recently showed that even parents are often helping their children set up Facebook accounts.

The company is consideringthe option tochangetheage limitso that children under13 yearsshouldbe able to accesssocial network, but only underparental supervision. New option, if implemented, will allowchildren under13 tohave Facebook accounts.Butthey will berelated to thoseparents whocancontrolpeoplethat childrenhave in their friends list, and whatapplicationstheyuse. Newfeatures couldalso includechargingparentsa feeforgamesaccessed bychildren. AlthoughFacebookrequiresan age limitof13 years, studies show that over 38% of children on Facebookare younger than12.Under these circumstances, the solution countedbythe companycouldprovide asafer environment for childreninthesocial network.

If this measure is implemented, the social network will win a large number of new users. Currently over a billion people have Facebook profiles, and if the age restriction will be removed, is possible for the social networking platform to achieve a record number of active users. Facebook restriction to limit children's access to social networking platform is part of the global policy to protect the vulnerable people from the dangers of the online environment.

Published on 9th Jan 2013 @ 12:16 AM