This is where my head is at right now. I’m listening to the pushback from Facebook users and parents who are concerned about Privacy. I’m compiling an exhaustive list of blog posts and articles related to Facebook, children, and privacy and how it impacts all of us.
Stay tuned for the wiki. In the meantime, here are 15 links to posts that address the issues that dominate not only my thoughts and hopes to see something done about Facebook’s complete disdain for its users; but also what keeps parents up at night… Some of the links here are to not only open parents eyes to what they are forced to deal with right now, but also in “how” to deal with it. I hope it helps.
Facebook: Children evade social websites’ age limits
Social media create new bullying issues for schools; Collier forum set for Monday
Too young for social networking?
Facebook, states set bullying, predator safeguards
How can parents access their children Facebook account
What is Facebook Doing to Protect Children from Sexual Predators?
Facebook ‘fails to protect children’
How To Monitor Children On Facebook
Should you be Facebook friends with your children?
Facebook urged to add ‘panic button’ for children
Facebook May Share User Data With External Sites Automatically
The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand
NYU Students Start Privacy-Minded Social Media Site
Direct Marketing Observations 
Thanks for putting together a great list. You might add the recent Wired article about what FB is indexing for your parental readers. Not kid specific, but certainly a great warning about what’s changed.
It’s really worrying when sources like BBC states that 8-11 years old children from UK are on social networks. Now that parents are more worrying and children enticed to these, this would be really a good collection! I appreciate your work! Let’s help it spread!
It’s fantastic to see more people becoming aware of the problem. I was reading in Techcrunch of how Mike Arrington defended Mark Zuckerberg. I think my reaction to Mike’s defense can be seen in my tweet.
This is what I thought and I must emphasize that this is merely my SPECULATION and not meant to be taken “seriously”.
Facebook has gone FOC long enough. Given the incredible valuation and several rounds of fundings prior to what we see now, I think Mark is desperate to show the investors some realistic revenue streams. But, a site that reveals no user information or personal preference is useless to commercial brands. What do you do in such a scenario? Well, you find ways to reveal that data to the advertisers. Otherwise, how can Facebook generate values for commercial users? If it’s solely about conversations, we certainly don’t need Facebook. Because, we can still have fairly good conversations with or without Facebook. We cannot deny there will always be people who are ready to break the rules, go against their own conscience, betray the trust and do things out of desperation.
On a separate issue, Mark’s track record were revealed to the world rather late. By that, I meant his alleged stealing of concept, his alleged hacking of emails and the confirmed case of him ripping off private pictures in his University. Strictly speaking from a legal point of view (since I am an ex-cop), if all these were known much earlier than we had it recently, would the world place so much trust in him as we had? And following that, if the trust wasn’t as strong, will Facebook even see so many sunrises and sunsets?
The history (to be legally accurate) behind a person’s behavioural traits just doesn’t reflect well on Mark Zuckerberg. It raised more questionable aspects than actually putting the issues to rest, comfortably.
And don’t mind me, we’re talking solely about America for now. What about global users? What about non-Americans who are not subjected to the laws of America? How can they protect or defend themselves? These are questions unanswered too.
@Ed Ed Don’t forget that 70% of FB’s user base is outside the US so I am surprised that I’m not hearing more about this across the pond. With that said, it does come down to money but at what expense and at who’s? The users that have created the community in the first place? Who or what drives what here? the technology or the people?
@Talmadge, I read that Wired piece as well..amazing.
Marc, I have a very simple explanation for that. The rest of the world are pretty much followers because Silicon Valley has built itself up to be the leader. Everybody outside US territories automatically assume that anything that comes out of there, must be right, must be good. Simply, Silicon Valley or US as a whole is a role model.
Now, that brings us to the second part of the equation. Which is, even if something wrong is being advocated, the rest of the world will still worship it. The rest of the world just don’t (and somehow they can’t) differentiate between logic and hype for some strange reason.
Very unfortunately, the people has been sacrificed here. The policies of Facebook today adopts the model of “silence means consent” which in the real world, we know that is utterly bull.
Oh I missed out something. It’s also in part due to the mentality that much of these people do not command a greater influence. Even an average marketer in US probably has a much larger audience base than what we have here. Assuming you had a marketer from… say… Thailand? Singapore?… how many folks in US will take them seriously?
Then, you have plenty of big influencers backing Facebook and again, if that famous personality says it’s good, it must be good.
Unfortunate, but true.
I know this post is very old, but I want to say something.
Facebook is partnering with the National PTA to promote safe Internet use to kids, parents and teachers.
The goal of the partnership is to provide information, support and news to encourage citizenship online, cut down on cyberbullying and improve Internet safety and security.
This is a really good move by the owner of Facebook and hopefully more of this project would come in the future.
Regards,
Juan
It takes more than just looking at posts and activity say once in a month to figure out if things are OK. Tools like Minormonitor help create statistics out of past 180 days data which can be very helpful to diagnose the overall social health of your child. See here on some tips to use MinorMonitor easily
http://www.skipser.toolsbysk.com/p/2/p/how-to-track-childrens-facebook-activity-easily.html
I am a parent of a 12-year-old from the “rest of the world”. For about a year+ now, I have been discouraging the kid from getting into This Thing.
Unfortunately I happen to be on among “The rest of the world” who just does (and somehow can) “differentiate between logic and hype for some strange reason.”
This Thing and the Leader are both behaving not very responsibly, where the rest of the world is concerned.
Unfortunate, but true.