Most everyone you know has an account with social media sites such as Facebook. This includes your friends, your employer, the people sitting near you at Starbucks, and, even, your 10-year-old cousin. But unlike the rest, your cousin isn’t supposed to, according to Facebook’s Terms of Service.
In response to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted in 1998, many companies with online services, particularly social media, have denied access to their site to individuals under the age of 13. This approach allows companies to avoid COPPA limitations on data that can be collected on children under 13 without parental consent. COPPA and other similar children’s privacy laws were passed to protect the privacy of children online, to guard against online predators, and to aid parents in maintaining control over their children’s online exposure. However, a new study published last week in the online journal First Monday found that parents often sacrifice the protections provided by COPPA and, in fact, often help their children lie about their age to gain access to sites such as Facebook.
The study authors asked 1,007 parents with at least one child between the ages of 10 and 14 to answer a series of questions about whether their children have a Facebook account, at what age the account was created and whether with parental help. Participants were also asked about their knowledge of the age minimum and their motivations for allowing their children to join the site even if underage. It was found that for those children who were underage, a large percentage still had a Facebook account (19% of ten year olds; 32% of eleven year olds; and 55% of twelve year olds). The data also found that many parents were unaware of either the age restriction at all, what was the cutoff age, or that the restriction was a requirement and not a recommendation. Seventy-eight percent of parents also believed that there are situations where they would let their children join a social media account despite being under that age requirement. In addition to asking about their children’s online activity, parents were also questioned about their attitudes on government regulation. Ninety-three percent of parents answered that parents should have the final say about whether or not a child should have access to use web sites.
The authors concluded that parents understood the age restriction on Facebook as a maturity restriction, similar to requirements for drinking age or movie ratings. Although the drinking age is also a legal requirement, its enforcement can be lax and is often ignored. Furthermore, parents did not want to have to make the choice between protection and access, a choice that was forced upon them by companies’ responses to COPPA. Therefore, even though COPPA was meant to aid parents in controlling their children’s online activities and exposure, it was ineffectual in that goal and either shut children offline altogether or exposed them online without restrictions.
The question is, can COPPA be reformed in a manner that would allow greater parental control without altering social media sites to a point of non-recognition? Can social media survive as a profitable enterprise if companies are restricted from advertising to a portion of its users? It will be something to watch in the future as parents try to regain control over the vast online community that has become such a integral part of our daily lives.
this helped me a lot thanks!