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Using MySpace or Facebook Before Age 13 Like Buying Beer with Fake ID
If you have a tween or an older elementary school student, you may be hearing that familiar whine “but, why can’t I go on Facebook (or MySpace)? EVERYONE is on it!”
Well, not everyone. In fact, to be on Facebook, you have to be 13. In Facebook’s own words,
“If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from a child under age 13, please contact us through this help page.”
Can’t get much more clear than that.
MySpace has a similar requirement and statement. In their words,
“Hey, we understand. All of your friends are on MySpace and you’re super-mature for your age. Nonetheless, we have various rules in place to keep you safe and secure on MySpace.”
Here are highlights of the MySpace rules:
- “you must be at least 13 years old to have a MySpace profile”
- “if you’re under 16 years old, you’re not allowed to list your age as over 16 and make your profile public (your profile must be set to private)”
They further go on to state that no changes can be made to stated ages. So, an 18 year old has to remain 18 and a teen under 18 can’t change their age to appear as if they are older than 18. They are so serious about these rules that MySpace states clearly that profiles will be deleted if rules are broken.
Again, crystal clear!
As mature as our kids may appear as pre-teens, they are not fully developed yet and do not understand the social nuances of the online world. They have enough issues with the offline world socially – think about all the hiccups they face with friends each month! Plus, would you let your preteen hang with teens in real life? So, we shouldn’t do it online.
The other issue is more straight forward: it’s the rule…the law! To allow a preteen younger than 13 onto one of these sites we would, as parents, have to lie, out right lie, about that child’s age. That gives that child the clear and unambiguous message that lying in some instances is ok but not in others. And, it pokes holes in our kids’ abilities to take us seriously because we just bent a very, very important rule.
We would never allow our kids to get a fake ID to get alcohol or to get a fake license to drive a car before they are the allowed age in their state, or to drive without a license. Going on Facebook or MySpace before age 13 is the equivalent of buying alcohol with a fake ID or driving with a falsified license or no license at all.
Sometimes as parents we have to draw a line in the sand and force our kids to wait until they are the right age for some aspects of life. Social networking isn’t going any where and when the time is right they will be able to go on to those sites and use them wisely and appropriately. Until then, there are many other sites for kids under age 13 they can enjoy.
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Comments
Underage Drinking is Legal
Here's another problem with the analogy. In many states it is legal for minors to drink under parental supervision.
http://www.madd.org/Drunk-Driving/Drunk-Driving/laws/Law.aspx?law=36
There are plenty of places on the internet that kids can get into trouble; many of these (such as IM and chat) permit children and parents should have some oversight of all of them in the same way they would watch who their children hang out with in real life are. Just because they go the movie theater where older teenagers are doesn't mean they are hanging out with older teenagers; i.e. just because facebook also has older kids and adults doesn't mean children are interacting with anyone besides their peers; the biggest risk of the internet in general is adults who may lie about their age to entrap children. It is conceivable that a format like facebook which is primarily organized around real life friends could be managed very well by a parent who confirms the real life identities of a child 's friends as opposed to chat rooms (do kids even use those anymore?) which are wide open and intended for interaction with strangers. I think that these social sites are mainly covering themselves from legal liability and they have to enforce their own rules or they wouldn't have sufficient legal cover.
As far as the ethics of lying, that is of course an issue here. However I think the deeper question is whether it is inherently dangerous or damaging for children to participate in social networks.
Massachusetts:
Any person without a license to serve alcohol may not serve someone under 21 years of age, **unless** their relationship is that of parent and child or husband and wife . M.G.L.c.138, #34.
http://web.mit.edu/alcohol/www/laws.html #mass6
Chat with a minor leads to Sex Offender Felony for LIFE
right now because of the internet easy access for kids and adults to mingle in private, there are tens of thousands of adults and kids with convictions as criminals because of Sex Offender charges brought to court and convicted. Keep the kids off certain sites by requiring credit card plus drivers license to be submitted to sites that allow kids and adults to chat online with each other freely. Kids and adults are human and make numerous errs in judgement all the time but filling our prisons and disrupting entire families because of political correctness law judgments at this time in our lives is expensive financially and mentally for life.
There is no concept of reality that is independent from theory:)
a clear example
of utter nonsense
Can't be enforced
There's no way to enforce this rule except to make everyone who signs up submit their SSN, drivers license or credit card number.
I charge forward recklessly, leaving chaos in my wake.
not neccessarily
There is a way to at least minimize it, and it is called........wait, get this..... its the PARENTS.
It is a shame that our society thinks that passing a law will fix issues, it doesn't most of the time, it is society dropping the ball because they for some reason do not want to step up to the plate and take charge of their environment . Maybe if society would start taking responsibility for themselves and stop pushing the problems on to the government , just maybe we can get the government straightened out. But how can we expect to fix our government when we cant or wont even fix ourselves?
Agreed
Parents pass the buck too much. They want the government to pass laws to protect their kids . They want teachers to teach their kids morals then get pissed when the morals aren't exactly the same as theirs. They want to keep offensive things off the TV & Radio so when they put their kids in front of the electronic babysitter they don't have to worry about their kids asking questions they don't want to answer. They want special protections put around things so they don't have to watch their kids themselves.
Parents! Be parents! You chose to have them. It's solely your job to teach them morals and keep them alive.
Personal responsibility
As long as government passes laws to govern our lives, we will take less and less responsibility. When government learns to back off, perhaps true autonomy will be restored.
I charge forward recklessly, leaving chaos in my wake.
I disagree
No, the government will not learn to back off. As the old saying goes "give them an inch and they will want a mile", that is what the government has done, and society has allowed them to take control. Its never going to change until the people stand up and say "we are mad as hell, and we are not taking it anymore". Then the people must proceed to clean house with our politicians with a vengence. I know this seems a little off topic, but it is just one piece to the entire perpetual cycle that we find ourselves in, and it keeps circling back around and ultimately the solution would fix many problems with our system. But at the same time society must quit running and crying to the government to pass a law because they do not want to take responsibility or fear of stepping on someones toes. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
I agree
I agree with that sentiment. But what, short of armed revolution, can be done to actually make government listen to us? They view us as cannon fodder, nothing more.
I charge forward recklessly, leaving chaos in my wake.
I dont know
I am not sure what the right way would be to go about doing this....peacefully that is. But I am of the opinion and not many share the same one but I am open to options on how to go about it. But my idea is to quit voting for these people that they give us to vote for. Yes, I understand it is our Constitutional right to vote, but by not voting for these idiots that they give us to vote for would send a clear message when no one showed up to the polls that we are not happy, and that action alone would force the government to make some sort of move that they possibly did not want to make, basically we would be turning the table on them, play their own game against them. Sending the "lessor of the evils" to office is not what we need and still does not gain the people anything by doing so and certainly does not even begin to scratch the surface of fixing our problems.
Not the same thing...at all
Let's take a collective step back here and see the differences between using a website under the age of 13 and buying beer under age or with a fake id. First off, you can do bodily harm to yourself by drinking alcohol in excess. You could make a terrible judgment or decision while impaired that could lead to serious consequences. Posting on facebook about how school sucks or how that guy is hot is not inherently dangerous. I think it is a good idea to not have young children with accounts on sites like a facebook or a myspace, but these are NOT the same thing.
I think a more appropriate example would be someone smoking in a non-smoking area or J walking. That's breaking the law too. I know what the author is attempting to do and while it is an admirable attempt at getting her point across, she fails at delivering on the scope of her argument. She blows the issue way out of proportion and in doing so, loses the reader. There is a stark difference from driving a car illegally, drinking alcohol underage, than setting up an account on facebook under false pretenses.
What horsecrap.
So a kid creating a profile on a website , which violates their rules, is the same as allowing a kid to break the law and get drunk? Sounds like someone needs to remove their head from their 4th point of contact. Why not just say it's the same as killing someone? If you're gonna be an ass, go all the way.
DOMINICLANE1
You're HILARIOUS, on a serious note I do agree with you
A clear example
This is the result of all the lazy and/or ignorant parents out there that have chosen to use electronic devices as their babysitter.