New Safeguards Coming to Facebook

Facebook is facing up to the dark side of the internet. The social networking site has announced new standards for making its destination safer for children and teenagers.

By Matt Gamewell,

May 8, 2008, 8:18 PM CDT

Facebook is facing up to the dark side of the internet. The social networking site has announced new standards for making its destination safer for children and teenagers. Now members will face more restrictions in a move to cut down on child predators and cyber-bullies who lurk on the site.

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With more than 70 million registered members, Facebook is the second largest social networking site behind MySpace. Now the company has joined its competitor in agreeing to police itself according to standards set by Attorneys General from around the country.

Facebook members can easily make millions of friends, but Dr. Matt Kliethermes of Child Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis says the downside of such connectivity is often lost on its young users. "It's really kind of a direct pipeline into people's home, and that's a pretty frightening thing to think about," he said. "In some ways the internet gives millions of strangers access to your living room."

Kliethermes, a clinical psychologist, has seen dire consequences stemming from kids seduced online by child predators, but he says parents treating the internet as forbidden fruit is not a realistic approach.

"I think it's important to supervise, educate and communicate," he advises. "Let kids know what the risks are, what they need to look out for, and what they should do if they're coming into contact with something that makes them uncomfortable."

Surfing Facebook could soon be safer. The site will make all users verify their age and identity as part of the agreement reached with Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon and his counterparts. Scott Holste, Nixon's spokesman, says "we want to make certain that younger people who are online are protected from online predators, and working to make sure we have appropriate and effective age and verification tools is the most important step there."

Facebook will also prevent older users from searching for minors and send automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of giving person information to an unknown adult. The site also will ban convicted sex offenders, as well as alcohol and tobacco advertisements.

Kliethermes says they're all important steps, but no match for open lines of communication. "What we always like to stress is that nothing really replaces a parent and a child being able to talk to each other," he says.

Facebook did not put a timeline on implementing the changes, which include 40 new safeguards. Experts on internet safety admit the Facebook deal still leaves millions of dot com's that don't comply to the same standards, so they advise parents to restrict or closely monitor the sites their children visit.