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Released: June 12, 2011

Lawmakers, advocates push social networks for more protection of youngest users

Source: Cecilia Kang - Washington Post

About 5 million U.S. users on Facebook are younger than 10 and 2.5 million subscribers are 11 or 12 years old, according to a recent survey by Consumer Reports magazine. And the youngest of Web users aren’t just on Facebook. They are logging onto social networks such as Formspring, tweeting their location to the Web, and making friends out of strangers on Disney and other games sites. That’s a lot of freedom on the Internet for children who can’t ride in the front seat of a car or leave school with a friend without a signed permission slip from Mom or Dad. Maybe too much freedom, in the opinion of child advocates and lawmakers, who are pressuring companies to work harder to keep the youngest users offline and to create federal rules that would limit how companies collect information about children on the Internet.

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