Posts Tagged ‘Underage’

Facebook and Child Exploitation

June 19, 2012

The moment Facebook first made the sensible and responsible age requirement rules they have been trying to soften, if not repeal them. The age restriction guidelines exist for the safety and wellbeing of underaged children. Yet we are constantly confronted with the reality that Facebook is desperate to recruit the underaged demographic.

The latest news sees Facebook advertisements target the very children they are supposed to be turning away:

An alliance of consumer rights groups on Monday pressed Facebook not to aim advertisements at preteen children or track their activities online if it formally opens its site to them.

Facebook has millions of underage users who claim to be over the required age of 13, and the company has had discussions with some advocacy groups over how to keep children safe on the site if they insist on signing up.

The topic of whether children under 13 should be on Facebook is hugely contested. One side argues that under no circumstances should young children be permitted on a social networking site, and another argues for an array of restrictions and conditions on how they can use the site.

The groups that sent the letter on Monday to Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, include Consumers Union, the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action and the Consumer Federation of America. They called on Facebook to refrain from tracking children under 13 both on the Facebook site and on other sites that have Facebook widgets, such as the “like” button. In addition, they called on Facebook to enable parents to monitor and review their preteen children’s activities, offer parents “granular control” over every application they use on the Facebook platform and keep children’s account settings as private as possible.

The letter read: “We want assurances that any space created for children under the age of 13 on the site is safe, parent-guided and controlled, and, most importantly, free of ads.”

Advertising is not the only reason Facebook would want to allow under-13s on its site. It could widen its user base, guard against children becoming attached to another social network, and potentially build a trove of information on users as they grow into adulthood. By developing special conditions for them, the company could also protect itself from a federal regulation that requires companies that gather information about children under 13 to obtain written consent from their parents; those regulations are being revised.

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Parents Helping Their Children Lie To Get On Facebook

November 2, 2011

To those parents who are contemplating assisting their underage children to get on Facebook, I strongly suggest you reconsider.  The age requirements for Facebook is necessary, as Facebook has a clear downside.  From cybersafety issues to cyberbullying, Facebook is clearly not designed for pre-teens.

Almost all parents of ten-year-olds signing up for the site – 95 percent – were aware of what their children were doing, and 78 percent of those helped them do it.

“Although many sites restrict access to children, our data show that many parents knowingly allow their children to lie about their age — in fact, often help them to do so — in order to gain access to age–restricted sites in violation of those sites’ ToS,” the authors write.

“This is especially true for general–audience social media sites and communication services such as Facebook, Gmail, and Skype, which allow children to connect with peers, classmates, and family members for educational, social, or familial reasons.”

The survey found that 55 percent of 12-year-olds, 32 percent of 11-year-olds and 19 percent of 10-year-olds were active Facebook members.

The authors suggest that the COPPA rules may need re-examination, given that they appear only to be encouraging parents to lie. Universal, rather than age-based, privacy protecitons might make more sense, they say.

The full report is here.

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Big Tobacco Funding Primary Schools

September 23, 2011

In today’s age, knowing what we know about the risks of smoking, how is it possible that tobacco companies have access to schools?  As important as it is to take into account cultural differences, China has no excuse in allowing tobacco companies to make their pitch to impressionable young children.  The cost of a quality education is not worth it if it comes with lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema.

MORE than 100 primary schools in China are sponsored by tobacco companies in a move described by anti-smoking campaigners as hunting for the next generation of smokers.

The schools often have the names of Chinese cigarette brands, such as Zhongnanhai or Liqun, over their gates and in some cases have promotional slogans in the playground.

”Talent comes from hard work – Tobacco helps you become talented,” says one slogan, in foot-high gilt letters, on the front of the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.

Tobacco helps you become talented?  No China, tobacco helps you die well and truly before your time!
Unfortunately, the message is successfully getting through to China’s underage demographic:
There are 16 million smokers under the age of 15 in China, 6.3 per cent of the youth population, according to the Chinese government.

For a country that is reknown for its strict regulations, it is mistifying that there is no regulations prohibiting tobacco from parading their brands in schools.

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