Facebook developing tech to let U-13's use site: New report

So has Facebook finally decided to let children below the age of 13 use the social networking site? The social networking site sparked off a storm of debate when  the  Sunday Times where Facebook’s head of policy in the UK, Simon Milner, was quoted as saying that Facebook was actively considering changing its policy. Milner said: “A lot of parents are happy their kids are on Facebook. We would like to hear from people what the answer might be.” [caption id=“attachment_331563” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Children under 13 give fake dates of birth to bypass Facebook’s rules that under 13’s can’t join: AP”]  [/caption] Facebook however denied the report, saying it had no such plans of letting those under 13 years of age join the website. In a comment to the  Telegraph, a Facebook spokesperson said,“We have no idea how The Sunday Times concluded that we are opening up to under-13s from the conversation Simon Milner had with them. All we have said is what we have been saying for months – that minors on Facebook and the internet is an important issue – and we want to work with the broader industry to look at ways of keeping minors safe. But now it seems that the company is indeed looking for ways in which they can let children back on to the site. A report in the Wall Street Journal states that Facebook is looking for ways to ensure that under 13 children will be able to use Facebook, but with a lot of safety precautions that will also help their parents monitor what they are doing. The WSJ report said, Mechanisms being tested include connecting children’s accounts to their parents’ and controls that would allow parents to decide whom their kids can “friend” and what applications they can use, people who have spoken with Facebook executives about the technology said. The under-13 features could enable Facebook and its partners to charge parents for games and other entertainment accessed by their children, the people said. Consumer Reports, an American consumer advocacy publication published a survey last month, in which it revealed that of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook in the past year, more than one-third or about 7.5 million were younger than 13 and not supposed to be able to use the site at all. Among the young users, more than five million were 10 years and under, whose accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents. Facebook, which has over 500 million users, screens applicants by asking for their birth date and rejecting those too young. However, a pre-teenager can join the network by falsifying his or her birth date. Further, since joining Facebook does not require a credit card, it is easier to give incorrect information to join the network. The report said parents of 10 year olds and younger kids on Facebook seem to be largely unconcerned. Only 18 percent made their child a Facebook friend, which is the best way to monitor the child. Only 10 percent of parents of kids 10 and under had frank talks about appropriate online behaviour and threats. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said at a public forum a year ago that he believed that children under 13 should be allowed to use Facebook. “That will be a fight we take on at some point,” he said, according to news reports.