Wednesday, June 6, 2012
At what age should children be allowed on Facebook?
Is your 10-year-old child ready for Facebook? In an attempt to bolster the bottom line for investors, Facebook is considering lowering its minimum age of 13 to register, The Washington Post reports. "The move highlights what analysts say will be a recurring problem for the newly public firm: Facebook needs to find ways to increase revenue and please its shareholders, but those actions can stir privacy concerns," The Post reported. Since its beginning, Facebook has slowly broadened its scope from being restricted to college campuses to opening access to the general public. Now, Facebook's minimum age requirement is 13, and users who falsify their age to participate violate the site's terms and conditions. "Facebook said it hasn’t made …
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Facebook executives announced the new feature Tuesday morning on Good Morning America encouraging its 900 million users to let others know if they are organ donors, according to a Washington Post report.
You might be familiar with the tiny heart on driver's licenses marking the license's owner as an organ donor. Now, you might find the tiny heart on Facebook, too. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the social networking giant added the ability to both register as an organ donor and demonstrate it in your profile on ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday morning. The new initiative, which encourages Facebook's 900 million users to let others know they are organ donors, was motivated by Zuckerberg's relationship with Apple's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, and Zuckerberg's girlfriend, according to The Washington Post. The two each encouraged Zuckerberg to use Facebook as a means for spreading social awareness. Facebook's FAQ …
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler hosted 'Facebook: 101' Tuesday night in Potomac, encouraging parents and kids to exercise caution online and utilize privacy settings.
With over 800 million users worldwide, Facebook’s community is the largest in the world, but many people, adults and children alike aren’t familiar with the inherent risks of social media, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said. Gansler has taken a lead role in supporting Internet privacy, writing a letter on behalf of attorney generals from 36 states challenging Google’s new privacy policy, which allows the company to collect and share more of users' personal information. Along with Brooke Oberwetter, a member of Facebook’s public policy team in Washington D.C., Gansler is also challenging Facebook users to be more aware of privacy settings and protections the social network offers. The duo presented Facebook: 101 – a community forum…
Friday, October 7, 2011
Executives from Facebook, Cartoon Network help O'Malley push anti-bullying pledge.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley joined executives from Facebook and Time Warner on Thursday to encourage students and parents to sign an anti-bullying pledge. In recognition of National Bullying Prevention Month, O'Malley spoke in front of hundreds of students at Arundel High School, asking them to do their part to stop harassment of young people, particularly through the use of online platforms such as Facebook. "The Internet's given your generation an amazing ability to connect that we never had before," O'Malley said. "But the issue is how we choose to use that connection. We can choose to use it to be cruel … or we can choose to be good." O'Malley was joined by his wife, Judge Katie O'Malley, along with Joel Kaplan, vice president of U.S…
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Facebook campaign targets July 26 County Council hearing; opponents will wear purple at Harry Potter premiere.
Hundreds of high school students—most of them not yet old enough to vote—are mounting a Facebook campaign against Montgomery County’s proposed youth curfew. Within hours of County Executive Isiah Leggett's proposal on Tuesday—which would ban anyone under 18 from public places after 11 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends—former Richard Montgomery High School student Abigail Burman launched “Stand Up to the MoCo Youth Curfew!,” a Facebook event calling on teens to converge on a County Council hearing set for July 26. “The idea behind the curfew is a laudable one in that we all want to keep our kids safe,” said Alan Xie, a co-organizer of the Facebook rally and the Board of Education's student member. “In reality some studies have shown…
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Facebook and Twitter offer details of lives cut short and provide a place for friends to mourn.
On Friday, students from Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville signed on to Twitter to make plans for the weekend. It was one of the last weekends of high school for the Class of 2011. Students tweeted with friends about graduation, about television shows, movies and music and about parties. They traded one-liners and gossiped about classmates. Haeley McGuire, an 18-year-old Magruder senior, signed on and retweeted a message from a friend: @gnourtina by HaeleyMcG Count your blessings, not your problems. It was her final digital fingerprint on the online social network. On Sunday, McGuire was one of three young adults killed in an early morning car crash in Olney. The trio left a digital trail of their lives on social networks that …
Eleanor Cooke
11:40 am on Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Well I think that it's complicated... only parents know whether their kids ready for Facebook.... you can have 13 yr old that act 10 and 10 yr olds that act 13, so it should really be the parents choice. Maybe if they introduced an age limit of about 10 but children under 13s parent had to click on a link to verify the account or something - that way there'd be a reasonable age limit with … more ›