<p>"A new state bill in the California State Senate could make social-networking sites like Facebook take down personal information and photos for account users under 18 and require more private settings.</p>
<p>The SB 242 was introduced by Sen. Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) and would require all security settings to default to private and charge up to $10,000 per violation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle..."</p>
<p>Looks like Facebook might be rated PG for those under 18.</p>
<p>Interesting. I won’t pretend to understand the legal stuff that goes along with this. What I will say is I don’t need Facebook to monitor my kids account while they are under 18. I have username and passwords and reserve the right to do a sweep on their page at any time. It was a condition of their setting up an account. If we see something we aren’t thrilled about, we say so and ask them to take it down. Obviously if there was a major concern we’d take it down immediately. I do agree, for people under 18 the default on security settings should be the highest level, not ‘let’s show our arse to the world’.</p>
<p>I think one thing that the legislators don’t quite understand is that there is no way to authenticate Facebook members. In other words, if a child lies about his or her age, it would be difficult to verify it unless Facebook required an ID authentication process such as a credit card, but even then it isn’t perfect. A minor could use their parent’s credit card to falsely register and if Facebook required an intrusive registration process as that, it would lose many, many members and ad money.</p>
<p>Legislature’s are always trying to find ways to protect kids who do not have appropriate supervision, but sometimes it is too idealistic and sometimes even particular parents disagree with the legislative protections. I know I would protest.</p>
<p>Budget? Y’all don’t need no stinkin’ budget! Y’all have to have to have to do something about Facebook first! Sheesh. One crime at a time, ma’am. One crime at a time. lol.</p>
<p>Most web sites will only allow individuals age 13 and over to sign up because of federal law - [COPPA</a> - Children’s Online Privacy Protection](<a href=“http://www.coppa.org/]COPPA”>http://www.coppa.org/) – </p>
<p>I know my daughter was setting up accounts at various places at age 11, simply lying about her age. That was years before facebook came along – Mark Zuckerberg was still in high school – but there were other sites that she was interested in. She also had independent email addresses set up via services like hotmail, and could check her email or post to online web sites from computers at her school. Again – years before we had the present technology, like smart phones – back when getting on the internet meant finding a workstation with a dialup connection.</p>
<p>I do think that the California law might run afoul of the existing federal law. I’d point out that it is also very difficult to ascertain where a user is coming from. Depending on the service they used to access the internet, their IP address may not accurately reflect geographic location. So as far as the under-18 thing, I think California is treading into an area where Congress has already weighed in with a somewhat different viewpoint.</p>
<p>I considered Blueiguana’s kind of controls… until I realized that it might end up being a parent-official site, with the real friends on an unofficial secondary one.</p>
<p>I think this is a good idea. I already required my kids to friend me in order for them to have an account, so it won’t change things in our household. But I think a lot of parents don’t realize that they might be held financially liable if their kids make disparaging comments (libel and slander) about others on FB. Parents ought to be monitoring their minor kids’ pages every day.</p>
<p>I also agree that it seems like it would be very difficult to implement.</p>
<p>I monitor both my kids’ pages. On my daughter’s page, I never, never post anything, and try to restrain myself from even saying anything about it to her. My son doesn’t care.</p>