Skip Links

Network World

  • Social Web 
  • Email 
  • Close

Facebook, states agree to boost efforts to protect children

By Heather Havenstein , Computerworld , 05/10/2008

Social networking site Facebook Thursday announced that it is boosting its privacy protections as part of an ongoing effort to work with 49 state attorneys general to protect children online.

As part of its agreement with the state AGs, Facebook said it will continue to enhance age and identity identification tools on facebook.com and provide automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of providing personal information to an unknown adult.

In addition, Facebook confirmed its participation in the Internet Safety Task Force, created by MySpace Inc. as part of a January agreement with the attorneys general.

"Building a safe and trusted online experience has been part of Facebook from its outset," said Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, in a statement. "We are proud to join 49 states and the District of Columbia in affirming our commitment to these principles and to continue improving our technology and policy solutions to keep kids safer on Facebook.

"The Attorneys General," Kelly added, "have shown great leadership in helping to address the critical issue of Internet safety and we commend them for continuing to set high standards for all players in the online arena."

Facebook also noted that it will restrict the ability of users to change their listed ages and will aggressively respond to remove inappropriate content and groups from the site.

Facebook also noted that it plans to require users under 18 to affirm that they have read Facebook's safety tips when they sign up.

Partner Content

Brilliantly simple security and control solutions for email, web and endpoint

www.sophos.com

Stopping data leakage

Learn how to exploit your current security investment to control the information that flows into, through and out of your network.

Download the white paper.

Why detection rates aren't enough

Evaluating endpoint security products is a time-consuming and daunting task. Learn the six critical questions you need to ask to prospective vendors to get the right endpoint solution.

Download the white paper.

Unauthorized applications: Taking back control

Employees installing and using unauthorized applications like IM, VoIP, games and peer-to-peer file-sharing applications cause many businesses serious concern. How do you control these applications?

Download the white paper.

Comment
Login
Forgot your account info?
Add comment
Anonymous comments subject to moderator approval. Register here for member benefits.
Have a NetworkWorld account? Log in here. Register now for a free account.

Videos

rssRss Feed
Save The Date!
What They Are Saying

14 years ago, I dealt with somebody like Childs. I was the new manager and the veteran techie knew it...- Anonymous

Join the Discussion