A new study by media watchdog Ofcom showed that the number of children, aged 12 years old and below, who have Facebook and other social networking accounts increased in the past couple of years.
According to the report, many of these children have ignored the age restrictions by the social networking sites by posing as older persons. The average age restriction for social networking sites is 13 years old.
The study also revealed that one out of five (19 percent) children, aged 12 years old below, uses social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. But the most alarming fact about the study is one out of six parents did not even know that their kids have social networking accounts.
The study also included the number of young Internet users that visited social networking sites from their homes, showing the number grew by more than 37 percent.
Many of the experts who have reviewed the new data said that the new study could spark a new set of debates on how social networking sites should regulate theirs age policy. They also said that despite the warning on the age limit, there is no real verification process to distinguish if the applicants were on the right age group.
It will be recalled that Facebook has faced a barrage of criticism from Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center for its refusal to install the CEOP abuse report program in its website. The program aims to look after and report inappropriate behavior of the youth in the website.
Sophos Internet safety expert Graham Cluley said that there are mix types of dangers that children will encounter on social networking sites, including being preyed by adult users.
He also mentioned that racism is a popular topic among the people in this websites, which could potentially misinform millions of youth in the website.
Related posts:
- Social Networking Costs Add Burden to UK Business Some 1.38 billion UK pound were lost every year due...
- Facebook Discusses with Nokia to Bring Social Networks to Mobile Phones Facebook is planning to bring social networks to mobile users...
- Pakistan Blocks 800 “Blasphemous” Websites The Pakistani government blocked on Friday some 800 websites and...