The consumer safety education initiative will see Facebook and the NAAG partner for a series of instructional videos and other privacy tips.

For instance, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will be featured in 19 different state-specific PSAs. She will stand alongside 19 state Attorneys General in the videos, which will be released on Tuesday.

“At Facebook, we work hard to make sure people understand how to control their information and stay safe online. We’re always looking for new partners in that endeavor – that’s why we’re thrilled to collaborate with the National Association of Attorneys General,” said Sandberg.

The privacy education initiative will also consists of a “What you Can Do to Control Your Information” video that will look to provide basic tips on Facebook privacy, bully prevention, and internet safety in general. Facebook will also provide a new privacy tip sheet. At of this info will be posted on Facebook’s Safety page, as well as the official websites and pages of all the Attorneys General.

“Teenagers and adults should know there are tools to help protect their online privacy when they go on Facebook and other digital platforms,” Gansler said. “We hope this campaign will encourage consumers to closely manage their privacy and these tools and tips will help provide a safer online experience. Of course, attorneys general will continue to actively protect consumers’ online privacy as well,” said NAAG President and Maryland AG Douglas Gansler.

Wired reports that Google has snatched up Ron Medford to be the new Director of Safety for Self-Driving Cars. Ron Medford is the current Deputy Director of the National highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to the report, Medford will resign his position at the NHTSA on November 30th, and officially take the position within Google on January 7th. Serving closely with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Medford used his position to shine a light on the prevalence of distracted driving, as well as push the new fuel economy guidelines set to go into effect in the next decade or so.

Back in September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1298 at Google HQ in Mountain View. That law forces the state to start adopting rules and regulation for the implementation of driverless cars, while also making their operation legal on public roads. California isn’t the only state making significant strides in brining driverless technology to their roadways. Nevada has legalized self-driving cars, begun developing regulations, and issued Google an autonomous vehicle license.

Google, who has logged well over 300,000 miles without incident with their driverless cars initiative, is clearly on the fast track to making all of this a reality. With this new hire, they find a way into the dark, cavernous void of federal governmental policy. Some analysts have predicted that self-driving cars could account for 75% of the traffic on the road by 2040. Maybe that’s not such a far-fetched idea after all.

“For years we have worked to create policies, programs and tools to foster, accountability and trust in our community. These tools include a “real name culture” that ties peoples’ actions to their identities; easy-to-use reporting on virtually every piece of content; and an experience for minors with visibility and sharing settings that are generally more restrictive than settings for adults,” says Facebook.

They say that the launch of the new “Prevent Bullying” page within the Safety Center is an extension of that commitment. The page includes just shy of a dozen links to various organizations like the National Network to End Domestic Violence, GLAAD, and The Bully Project. The page also features a couple of videos – one that was featured as a Facebook Story this month involving a bullied high-school soccer player and a new one that talks about reporting abusive content. You can check it out below:

As you can see from the video, Facebook says they are seeing success with the “social resolution” product.

“As a result of the latest research, we’ve rolled out new experiences for 13 and 14 year olds. The data is showing exciting initial results: we are seeing a 4X increase in people finding a resolution in the flow and 81% say they had a positive experience when engaging with the self resolution tools on Facebook,” says Facebook.

The page also links to the Support Dashboard, which is Facebook’s way of letting users track the progress of every report they make – content that violates Facebook policy, harassing posts, etc. Facebook opened it up to all users earlier this month.

Facebook is also using it’s Stop Bullying: Speak Up project to help spread a new anti-bullying ad campaign from the Ad Council.

“Today, we are also standing with the Ad Council as it launches its bullying prevention advertising campaign on TV, in print and online. We are deeply integrating the Ad Council content into our Stop Bullying Speak Up program, now in its second year with more than a million “likes” and more than 140,000 young people and adults who have taken the pledge to be more than a bystander,” they say.

Recent stories are proof that bullying is a problem, both online and offline. Any tools that Facebook, the largest social network in the world, can implement to help combat it are worth it.

Of course, the internet (and more recently, social media) has allowed for verbal abuse to expand past the face-to-face variety. We’ve been told that it’s an “epidemic,” and that kids and teenagers are being abused via Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. on a daily basis. We’ve even heard the horror stories – kids killing themselves because they couldn’t take it any more, or parents participating in the abuse of their kid’s enemies.

Now, one psychologist is saying that we’ve really overblown the prevalence of cyberbullying.

His claims came as a presentation at the American Psychological Association’s 120th Annual Convention.

“Claims by the media and researchers that cyberbullying has increased dramatically and is now the big school bullying problem are largely exaggerated,” said psychologist Dan Olweus, PhD, of the University of Bergen, Norway. “There is very little scientific support to show that cyberbullying has increased over the past five to six years, and this form of bullying is actually a less frequent phenomenon.”

In fact, citing a few large studies (one including over 450,000 grade 3-12 students), Olweus says that face-to-face bullying is still way more common than cyberbullying. On average, 18% of students reported face-to-face bullying. Only 5% said they’d ben cyberbullied. Also, 10% admitted to bullying (traditionally), while only 3% admitted to cyberbullying.

Although that study was conducted in the United States, similar studies from other countries like Norway have produced similar results.

Olweus says that 80 to 90 percent of those who said they had been cyberbullied were also victims of traditional bullying.

“These results suggest that the new electronic media have actually created few ‘new’ victims and bullies,” Olweus said. “To be cyberbullied or to cyberbully other students seems to a large extent to be part of a general pattern of bullying where use of electronic media is only one possible form, and, in addition, a form with low prevalence…Nonetheless, there are some forms of cyberbullying — such as having painful or embarrassing pictures or videos posted — which almost certainly have negative effects. It is therefore important also to take cyberbullying seriously both in research and prevention.”

Even if cyberbullying isn’t quite the epidemic that some think it is (and this is just one study), its consequences are well known. Incredibly prevalent of not, it needs to be addressed an counteracted with vigor.

Actually, I’m not 27 years old. I’m 26 years old. I just lied on the internet! And trust me, it really is so easy that a preteen can do it.

And they do – all the time. Although Facebook’s current policy plainly prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from operating an account on the site, most reports put the number of preteen Facebook users in the millions. In fact, if a kid is on Facebook (under 18), there’s about a 2 in 5 chance that they are actually under the age of 13. Other reports, acknowledged by Facebook themselves, show that over half of parents with a 12-year-old child say that he/she has a Facebook account.

Do you think that Facebook is safe for kids under 13? If not, do you think it can be made safe with certain limitations and parental controls? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook says that they do all they can to identify and remove underage accounts – but it’s obviously one of the largest games of whack-a-mole ever. Close one down, five 11-year-olds log on in their place. Facebook removes somewhere around 20,000 underage accounts a day, and there’s still over 7.5 million under-13 accounts active on the site.

It doesn’t take the world’s most adept mathematician to see that this is a fight that’s going to be really hard to “win” with a simple ban. It’s clear that simply requiring age verification will never keep young kids off of Facebook. The site’s simply too popular. Everyone, including 10, 11, and 12-year-olds now require the social connectivity that it can provide.

Facing the evergreen problem that is trying to police all of these underage accounts, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Facebook is considering a new approach. Just over a month ago, we heard that the company was mulling over the idea of opening up the site to kids under the age of 13. We heard that Facebook’s “if you can’t beat them..” strategy would have preteen accounts closely monitored by parental controls – which would work in correlation with the safeguards that Facebook already has in place regarding minors’ privacy.

If they’re going to do it anyway, we may as well have them do it under proper supervision, right?

Early concerns

If we believe the stats, the majority of parents with 12-year-olds know that their kids are on Facebook. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are cool with it. Once the news of Facebook’s possible shift in age restrictions, people seemed to come out of every conceivable corner of the outrage circuit to voice their opinions.

And who can blame concerned parents? Facebook (and social communication in general) can be a minefield for older teens and even adults – and most people’s natural inclination is to protect young children at all costs. All a parent has to hear is one nightmarish story about child predation and subtle manipulation on Facebook, and the negatives of social networking immediately outweigh any positives. And although Facebook horror stories aren’t so commonplace as to become routine, there are still enough floating around to engender some concern.

To some parents, no amount of control or guidance would make them feel truly comfortable with opening up their preteens to the risks – either external or internal.

In one of the first major addresses of Facebook’s possible plans, nearly a dozen consumer groups sent a joint letter to Mark Zuckerberg. That letter contained some “demands” for any scenario where Facebook opens up the service to kids under 13.

Although the groups mentioned parental controls, and increased privacy for preteen members, their main point involved ads on the site – in that there shouldn’t be any when it comes to kids:

[T]he company’s business model relies, at its very core, on data collection, ad targeting, and viral marketing, and many of its practices have generated public and government privacy concerns. If Facebook opens itself up to a younger audiences, we want assurances that any space created for children under the age of 13 on the site is safe, parent-guided and controlled, and, most importantly, free of ads (including the range of practices that are routinely employed through social media marketing).

Congressional pressures and the evolution of Facebook responses

When the rumors began to fly concerning Facebook’s possible age-shift, the company was unsurprisingly unspecific about their actual thought process. Upon the initial reports, Facebook told me that they were “in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.”

After the letter from the privacy groups, Facebook started to say that they were open to suggestions:

Enforcing age restrictions on the Internet is a difficult issue, especially when many reports have shown parents want their children to access online content and services. We welcome today’s recommendations by consumer, privacy, health and child groups as we continue our dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.

Now, thanks to a newly-released letter from Facebook to two Congressmen, we know that Facebook is still thinking about it, but are a ways away from a final determination.

“At this point, we have made no final decision whether to change our current approach of prohibiting children under 13 from joining Facebook,” said the company.

That’s just a blip in a much-longer letter that the company sent Republican representative Joe Barton and Democratic representative Ed Markey. The two House members sent Facebook a letter back in early June outlining their concerns regarding the protection of kids on the site.

Facebook’s response mirrors many responses the company has had to questions raised by concerned parties. For one, they reiterate that any decision they make will be mindful of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law that Facebook has formally addressed in a highly detailed fashion. The bulk of the response involves Facebook talking about their current features that promote safety for minors, in lieu of having yet made any actual decisions on the sub-13 crowd.

Facebook actually does do a lot, already

In addition to the everyday privacy controls that all Facebook users have access to, the company already has an admittedly impressive set of features in place that are designed to protect the network’s younger crowd.

• For instance, Facebook users aged 13-17 have different sharing settings, by default, than those users who are 18+. A minor’s sharing capabilities are limited to friends and friends of friends – no more. Also, if you’re not a friend of a friend of a minor, it’s physically impossible for you to send them a direct message.
• In a more controversial move, we recently learned that Facebook is actively monitoring the millions and million of chats and messages between their 900+ million users. Why monitor chats, you may ask? Because Facebook is always on the lookout for suspicious behaviors. And their software scans communications all across the network, looking for possibly criminal activity. That, of course, includes inappropriate conversations between minors and possible predators. Facebook’s monitoring software works in two distinct ways. First, it puts more weight into focusing on conversations between members who aren’t especially connected in any significant way – few mutual friends, new friendships, etc. Second, the message scan can identify certain words and phrases that could signal illicit communications. As a Facebook user, you can raise concerns about privacy and the legality of this sort of monitoring – and your concerns would be legitimate. But from a protecting kids standpoint, it’s hard to argue that this sort of technology is of great benefit.
• Facebook also bans sex offenders from participating in the network – outright. So do many states as well, although these laws are currently begin challenged by free speech activists as we speak.
• As a company that’s put a lot of effort into anti-bullying campaigns (having even been recognized for their work), Facebook says it’s a priority to keep users, especially minors, safe from harassment. Just recently, Facebook made a few tweaks to their reporting mechanisms to help in that effort. Now, when minors feel threatened by a particular post, the “report” procedure has been softened and made a bit more conversational and inviting. For instance “report” will be replaced with “This post is a problem.” After clicking, teens will be walked through the process with scenario-specific questions.

But is it enough?

“Children are not commodities, and their personal information should not be harvested to yield ad revenue for Facebook and its hungry shareholders,” said Rep. Markey, co-author of the letter to Facebook. “The privacy of personal information for pre-teens should not become a post-script in Facebook’s drive for profits.”

Even if Facebook opened up the network to preteens and did so by giving parents granular control over all aspects of their experience, would it be enough to assuage the concerns of many? Even after knowing that Facebook is actively trying to protect young kids from seedy situations online, does it do anything to make you feel comfortable with the thought of your 10-year-old browsing their News Feed?

The advertising issue may be just as potent of an issue as privacy and safety. Both the consumer groups and the Congressmen made ads their front and center complaint.

You could argue that children are inundated with ads all the time – television, movies, etc. Hell, walk into a toy store and you’ve basically just put your kid in the middle of a giant advertisement for various products. How can parents think that targeted ads on Facebook are any more dangerous than a targeted ad on the Sunday morning cartoons?

Or on a site like YouTube?

But it’s clear that something about Facebook ads clearly rub people the wrong way – especially when it comes to children.

What are your biggest concerns in allowing your preteen to operate a Facebook account? Do you think that Facebook is doing/will do enough to protect minors on the site? Let us know what you think in the comments.

How about “it’s a universal human right, protected by the constitution, to be able to access these forms of communication as they amount to free speech.”

Those are the types of statements you’re likely to hear concerning sex offenders and social media. The problem is that it’s much more complicated than those polarizing statements suggest. That’s why states are currently coming to different conclusions surrounding similar laws.

The latest ruling comes from Indiana, where a federal judge has decided that a state ban on convicted sex offenders accessing social media sites like Facebook is lawful. The decision will be appealed by the ACLU, who have been fighting such laws around the country.

Here’s a simple one: Why is banning registered sex offenders from Facebook such a hot topic these days? Do you think that this kind of ban is a lazy way to deal with a tough problem? Let us know in the comments.

The ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union back in January. In a class-action challenge, the ACLU cited the unlawfulness of an Indiana statue that prohibits registered sex offenders from accessing any social networking site that can also be accessed by minors.

The actual statue reads:

…a person described in subsection who knowingly or intentionally uses a social networking web site; or an instant messaging or chat room program that the offender knows allows a person who is less than eighteen (18) years of age to access or use the web site or program commits a sex offender Internet offense, a Class A misdemeanor.

The ACLU’s problem with that law is that its overbroad and unconstitutional.

“To broadly prohibit such a large group of persons from ever using these modern forms of communication is just something the First Amendment cannot tolerate,” said Ken Falk, ACLU legal director, Indiana chapter.

Their argument states that social media is such a ubiquitous part of everyday life, and that it’s impossible to simply ban an entire segment of the population from using a necessary form of communication.

Judge Tanya Pratt thought otherwise, saying, “the Court readily concedes that social networking is a prominent feature of modern-day society; however, communication does not begin with a ‘Facebook wall post’ and end with a ’140-character Tweet.’”

Indiana is not the only place where these kinds of laws are being battled in the courts. In Nebraska, a similar law banning registered sex offenders from holding social media accounts was axed. And in Louisiana, a sex offender Facebook ban was deemed “unconstitutionally overbroad.”

“Although the act is intended to promote the legitimate and compelling state interest of protecting minors from internet predators, the near total ban on internet access imposed by the act unreasonably restricts many ordinary activities that have become important to everyday life in today’s world,” wrote the Judge in his opinion.

That ruling hasn’t stopped proponents of the ban, who passed a revised version last month. One Louisiana lawmaker, unsure of the constitutionality of blanket bans, has passed a law requiring all registered sex offenders to list their status and crimes on any social network in which they participate.

Should sex offenders be allowed on Facebook (and other social outlets)? It’s obviously a highly contested premise. One side screams something about protecting children – while the other screams something about the first amendment and fairness. Factor in the discrepancies in “sex offender” laws which have people winding up on a registry for public urination, and you’ve got a rather complicated issue.

Plus, Facebook is pretty clear about it from their end:

“Convicted sex offenders are prohibited from using Facebook.”

Is access to Facebook and other forms of social media protected by the First Amendment? Do sex offender laws lack enough uniformity to make it immoral to lump people together in a blanket social media ban? Or is the idea of registered sex offender (no matter the crime) having access to communication channels with young kids so despicable that social media bans are the only way to deal with the issue? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Although Facebook has yet to acknowledge that they’re even thinking about this (only that they are always in talks about “how to help parents keep their kids safe”), it hasn’t stopped various public policy groups and child advocates from voicing concern, and even outrage in some cases. We all know that the online landscape can be rather dangerous for kids, and some people feel that Facebook is simply too mature of an environment to allow a ten-year-old to operate inside it – in any capacity, guided or not.

What kinds of safeguards and settings would you need to see from Facebook in order to feel comfortable letting your preteen join the site? Let us know in the comments.

Others may argue that fighting the inevitable is worthless, and at least this way parents can help their preteens navigate the minefield. Something like 38% of kids on Facebook are actually under the official age requirement, according to some reports. Plus, Facebook has said that they are removing around 20,000 underage accounts every day.

It’s obvious that the current policy, as it stands, is flawed. And when you think about just how hard it really is to verify age online, and how easy it is to lie – it’s no wonder Facebook may be thinking about simply opening up the floodgates and leaving it to parents to work this one out.

And if they wind up doing that they need to make a few guarantees, says a coalition of thirteen consumer groups. In a letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today, these privacy watchdog groups say that above all, any preteen experience on Facebook “should be ad-free in its entirety.”

[T]he company’s business model relies, at its very core, on data collection, ad targeting, and viral marketing, and many of its practices have generated public and government privacy concerns. If Facebook opens itself up to a younger audiences, we want assurances that any space created for children under the age of 13 on the site is safe, parent-guided and controlled, and, most importantly, free of ads (including the range of practices that are routinely employed through social media marketing).

The groups also demand that Facebook links any preteen accounts with those of their parents. If the parents don’t have accounts, they say that some sort of separate login system should be present to give parents control over the account.

They also suggest granular control over any and every action taken by the child – sharing, responding to friend requests, app use, photos – you name it, it should all be controlled by the parent. Alongside this control, the group wants an educational campaign to better inform parents about the innerworkings of the site so they can make smarter decisions about their kids’ activities.

Finally, they demand that preteen accounts not be able to be made public by any means. Information should only be accessible to friends by default.

Of course, a lot of this hinges upon the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and any future changes made to it. Facebook have said that they are “mindful of COPPA,” and have even provided a formal response to it which you can check out here.

The letter was signed by the following groups:

Consumers Union, the Center for Digital Democracy, the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Media Justice, Center for Science in the Public Interest, ChangeLab Solutions/Public Health Law & Policy, Children Now, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Privacy Times, Public Citizen, and World Privacy Forum.

Here’s a statement I received from Facebook concerning these consumer groups’ letter:

Enforcing age restrictions on the Internet is a difficult issue, especially when many reports have shown parents want their children to access online content and services. We welcome today’s recommendations by consumer, privacy, health and child groups as we continue our dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.

It’s clear that any move to allow younger kids on Facebook is going to draw a lot of concern – as it should. But it’s obvious that simply banning under-13s in the Statement on Rights and Responsibilities isn’t working – kids are going to get it. Whether it’s allowing them to join with parental guidance, or trying to make it tougher with something like facial age recognition, it’s pretty clear that the issue will be addressed and policies modified in the near future.

Do you think that kids under the age of 13 have a place on Facebook? Considering they are going to log on despite the rules, wouldn’t it make sense for parents to shepherd them through their first social media experience? Or is 10 or 11 simply too young for Facebook – no matter how much control you take away from them? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Another thing that helps is the improved attention to detail from North American web users, which helps explain the rise of phishing attempts in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia. As for Google’s Safe Browsing effort, this month marks the five-year anniversary of the program, giving Google an opportunity to point out where they’ve been successful:

• We protect 600 million users through built-in protection for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, where we show several million warnings every day to Internet users. You may have seen our telltale red warnings pop up — when you do, please don’t go to sites we’ve flagged for malware or phishing. Our free and public Safe Browsing APIallows other organizations to keep their users safe by using the data we’ve compiled.
• We find about 9,500 new malicious websites every day. These are either innocent websites that have been compromised by malware authors, or others that are built specifically for malware distribution or phishing. While we flag many sites daily, we strive for high quality and have had only a handful of false positives.
• Approximately 12-14 million Google Search queries per day show our warning to caution users from going to sites that are currently compromised. Once a site has been cleaned up, the warning is lifted.
• We provide malware warnings for about 300 thousand downloads per day through our download protection service for Chrome.
• We send thousands of notifications daily to webmasters. Signing up withWebmaster Tools helps us communicate directly with webmasters when we find something on their site, and our ongoing partnership with StopBadware.org helps webmasters who can’t sign up or need additional help.
• We also send thousands of notifications daily to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & CERTs to help them keep their networks clean. Network administrators can sign upto receive frequent alerts.

Their report also points out the monthly discoveries of phishing sites and malware-infected sites, all of which are things to avoid. If you haven’t been keeping up with how the war on malicious software and unscrupulous phishing attempts, you would be wise to increase your levels of vigilance:

But one company thinks that your smartphone could be the best way to both deter and respond to crime.

PerpCast Inc.’s new app iWitness says that it will help “prevent crimes from happening, keep them from escalating when they do, make it easier for authorities to catch and prosecute criminals, and provide peace of mind for the user.” Once activated, the app will not only take audio and video of any event, but it will also store that data on a “secure server” that’s only accessible to law enforcement officials (the user will be provided with a copy as well).

Here’s how it works:

When you find yourself in a threatening environment (any scenario where you feel things might go down, I guess), you pull out your smartphone and click “Arm iWitness.” After that, you’ll be able to capture audio and video of any incident that arises with a single tap of the screen. If the situation gets even more out of hand, tap the screen again and 911 will be called (after a short delay to account for possible accidental taps).

If someone manages to knock your phone out of your hand before the opportunity to do that, it will recognize it and still dial 911.

iWitness will also do a couple more things to notify people around you that you’re in a sticky situation. The app has the ability to send pre-programmed friends and family members a message about your exact whereabouts.

Finally, as a deterrent, the app not only flashes a bright red light but sounds a loud alarm as well.

So, wouldn’t a gun just be easier? No, says iWitness:

Perpetrators are often able to take guns, tasers, or other weaponry from their victims, and use them to escalate their crime. But IWITNESS provides the one thing that criminals fear most, a witness to their actions. So the confrontation is discouraged without the inherent risk of deadly force.

Of course, a few things have to happen for iWitness to be truly effective. First, users have to know when (and when not) to use it – especially if they get far enough to dial 911. Second, there’s the obvious reliance on people to take video of possible robbers, rapists, and killers – all while presumably terrified.

But if users can keep up their end, and law enforcement can keep up theirs by monitoring the data – then the app could be incredibly useful in the aftermath of a crime – if not as a deterrent.

As of now, iWitness is only available on iOS – but an Android app is on its way. The app is free to download but requires a subscription to use ($3.99 a month, $29.99 a year, or $49.99 for a two-year plan).

[Via CNET]

Apparently, Facebook is in the process of developing new technology that would make way for kids under the age of thirteen to become members of the network. Of course, that technology would be focused on the safety and privacy of the children and would most likely link their accounts to their parents’ accounts. According to the sources, the “under-13″ feature would allow parents to control who their child becomes friends with, and well as what apps and game purchases they utilize.

Of course, even if Facebook implements a new feature like this, it’s not like it will mark the first wave of sub-13-year-olds participating in the social network. Despite the clear ban of youngsters in Facebook’s Terms of Service, kids under the age of 13 have been using the service for quite some time. Some recent studies say that up to 38% of the kids on Facebook are under the official age requirement. Other reports have put the hard number at 7.5 million under-13 kids on the site.

How do these children do it? Well, they lie, and it’s that simple. Facebook’s age verification systems simply takes you on your word – as does every online age verification system. It’s not like beer websites and YouPorn are running background checks on browsers. The kids are getting in, but Facebook reportedly works pretty hard to remove underage accounts – 20,000 a day according to one report.

The underage account problem is an old and persistent one for Facebook, as it’s nearly impossible to truly enforce their policy. With a move like this, Facebook would be taking the “it’s going to happen anyway” approach, enlisting parents to guide their children through what, by now, seems like an inevitable process.

According to one UK Member of Parliament, it’s already happening. Tim Loughton made news back in April when he said that there was a rising trend of parents helping their underage kids navigate the Facebook minefield. He took a decidedly negative position on the practice, but I (and others, obviously) asked whether or not parents should shepherd their kids through the inevitable? There are 900+ million people on Facebook, and think about what a 12-year-old is – a middle schooler in many cases. Yeah, it’s safe to say that they are going to find their way on Facebook – with or without parental guidance.

So, why fight it, some would argue.

Then again, even with the watchful eye of parents, Facebook can be a rough landscape for young kids. Bullying, sexual predation, adult content – it’s all out there and can easily reach kids. Cyberbullying is hard enough to deal with if you’re 13 or even 16, but much worse if you’re 8 or 9. It’s a tricky debate, no doubt.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this accordingly.

UPDATE: We’ve heard back from a Facebook spokesman:

Many recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to enforce age restrictions on the Internet, especially when parents want their children to access online content and services. We are in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.