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27 Mar 2010
Ofcom has raised fresh questions about Facebook and other social networking sites, after finding that a quarter of underaged children have registered with the sites, up 15 per cent from the previous year.
The annual UK Children's Media Literacy report released yesterday said that the minimum age for registering with social networking sites is 13, but that one in five children aged eight to 12 had a Facebook account. The figure dropped to 11 per cent on Bebo and four per cent on MySpace.
"Among those users aged eight to 12 with a page or profile on either Facebook, Bebo or MySpace, 11 per cent say they have set their profile to be visible by anyone," the report said.
"Ninety-three per cent of parents who are aware that their child visits social networking sites say that they check what their child is doing. However, 17 per cent of parents of these children are not aware that their child visits social networking sites."
The news will be a blow to Facebook, which was recently forced to defend unfounded allegations by The Daily Mail that the site is being used by paedophiles to contact young children.
Facebook was then embroiled in a public stand-off with home secretary Alan Johnson over whether the site should place a Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre panic button on its main pages.
The company refused, although it did agree to install such a mechanism in its Safety Centre section.
The issue of child safety on social networking sites was brought to the fore recently after the case of murdered teenager Ashleigh Hall, who was contacted by her killer via Facebook.
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educate
How about 'reading 'writing and arithmatic before sitting in front of a screen clicking on a 'mouse' the spelling belongs to a new language
Posted by: lois chapman 16 Apr 2011
Second Life allows 13+ Teens to mix with Adults in an Adult enviroment
on the Second Life forums. Second Life is an 18+ platform whilst on the forums 13+ yo Children are allowed to mix with the adults. No where on the Teen grid site are warnings for parents that this happens and the Teens are not identified in the forums either. They can also Private message other Adults. Its a disaster waiting to happen. See the below threads for more information: https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/9962?start=0&tstart=0 https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/15689 https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/15387?start=0&tstart=0
Posted by: Anon 28 Mar 2010
Watch what YOUR children are doing!
"New Ofcom report highlights worrying lack of age verification checks." PARENTS should know what their children are accessing.It is THEIR responsibility to protect their children. Parents should go back to being parents. There is no check that can be made on ages, no matter what Q+A barriers are placed on registration pages,people lie. In the USA they have the COPPA system on websites and forums but that is totally useless,anyone can bypass it as they can any other online system,there is no way to prove who is at the keyboard.
Posted by: AdrianH 27 Mar 2010
underage children on facebook
there is no way children should be allowed on these networks. three times in total we had to ask for a member of our family to be removed. the first time at the age of 10. a new facebook account was then opened in a different name for this child. the child was being encouraged to misuse facebook ,the child was removed and yet anothername was given = this time a new babies name..we believe she is still on facebook, in a different name, but obviously we have been blocked so cannot be sure.it is surely irresponsible. the minimum age should be 16-18yrs.up to the age of 16 facebook should need proof of age, etc and if it is shown that a child has misused or a parent misused facebook steps should be taken to remove them permanently from the site.
Posted by: 123 witch 22 27 Mar 2010
Parents responsibility
You can't blame social network sites for underage children signing up to them. No, it's down to the parents. If they can't be bothered to take an interest in their own children's past times then more fool them. Also, the title in this news piece is very misleading. How are these sites supposed to NOT allow underage children to sign up? Lack of age verification checks? How can a site tell if someone is lying or not? If kids lie about their age there is nothing you can do. If think the media needs to get over itself and stop all this hand-rubbing.
Posted by: fawkes 27 Mar 2010
Underage kids allowed to sign up to social networks
I do agree with the comments made in the article. I recently became aware that my eleven year iold daughter had a facebook page after she tried to add me as a friend. I was throuhly annoyed especially when I found out her friend had created it at school. A couple of weeks passed and I was discussing it with my mom and she said that my brother ha dcommented that he allowed her to add him (works in IT Support) and she has a lot of so called friends. I then used the windows 7 parental controls to block unsavoury internet sites, one of which was facebook. A few days later left my laptop unattended whilst preparing dinner and when I logged into FB my daughter had been on it and left her profile up and numerous bits of personal info. included for all and sundry to view even our home address & tele. no. Despite the fact recently in the news was the story of a young girl being groomed online, raped and murdered. The only thing that |I could do was delete the personal information but was unable to delete the account without knowing her password.
Posted by: Kim S 27 Mar 2010
What planet are you on?
This has been going on for years. I emailed Bebo 3 -4 years ago abount my daughter ho was 10 at the time receiving enails from ....I don't know who, they were a joke and not interested. We really need to stamp down on what is a safe haven n for pedos
Posted by: Robert Kerr 27 Mar 2010