The Children`s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was intended to prevent online platforms from collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 for advertising targeting and tracking purposes, but it has since become an outdated framework that Big Tech — still striving to reach the lucrative under-16 market — can use as a minimum age limit. Age restrictions on social media platforms exist to ensure the safety of children. Unfortunately, violating these restrictions is simple and easy. When young children falsify their age and use social media, they are often too young to understand the impact of their posts or effectively handle dangerous situations, and cannot be protected by laws aimed at keeping teens safe online. Fortunately, parental control software like Net Nanny`s social media protection feature is a proven method to restrict your kids` access to social media until they are responsible and ready. “We`re dealing with a substantially different internet experience today than we were in the 1990s, when we had very primitive types of advertising,” Jennifer King, a privacy and data scientist at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, told Insider. She said the 13-year age limit was both “problematic” and “arbitrary”. Needless to say, Australia has neither COPPA nor GDPR (although similar laws have been requested to protect children`s privacy). Go ahead, admit it.
Your “minor” child has a social media account. We know that the pressure to “adapt” or “be popular” can be intense, and ultimately, it`s up to a parent to decide if their child is able to handle interactions that come from social networks, but anything that gives kids access by strangers, perhaps in the guise of an app or a game. has the potential to be dangerous to a child if abused. There was a time when parents feared that their children would be approached by strangers on the street and in playgrounds. Now, the threat has moved online with predators using shady profiles on social media and gambling sites. Finally, if your young child simply needs to have an online social life, there are many safe alternatives designed specifically for younger users like Club Penguin, WebKinz, and Whyville. Each of them offers limited and supervised networking. Most social networking platforms have a reporting function. Visit our social networking page for more information and specific links to some of the most popular platform reporting links. Understanding the impact of a social media post is beyond a young mind`s cognitive understanding, and any mistakes or miscalculations cannot be erased from the online board, which could affect their future. If a child is attacked by bullies or predators, their limited ability to cope with such a situation at a young age can put them at risk both mentally and physically. If, after reflection and discussion, you decide that your child is ready for a social media presence, it`s important to agree on: In fact, the origin of the age restrictions for 13+ is a 22-year-old U.S.
law called COPPA, also known as the Children`s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. This law made it illegal to collect or store the personal information of children under the age of 13. But Chris Olsen, CEO of Media Trust, a digital security, trust and security platform, told insiders that even if COPPA was updated, the age limit hardly mattered. What matters is the for-profit companies that keep the well-being of consumers in mind. Many of these apps, websites, and games have a minimum age and they are there for a reason, but users can get around this problem by charging a birthday that would make them older than the required age! Experts say the industry should support COPPA updates that raise the age limit to keep up with modern times, even though the measure wouldn`t be a catch-all to protect children online. Tags: age restrictions social media monitoring The Internet is as dangerous to the young mind as the streets of a criminal city are to the innocent. This is not new information, but the dangers of social media have increased since the MySpace era. In response to the latest social media platforms and accompanying trends, parents should not allow their children to get social media, at least after the age of 13. The data is there, kids enjoy social media.
Studies confirm this. In fact, according to Pew Research, 89 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 reported using at least one social media site and 71 percent using more than one website. Did you know that almost all social media sites allow users to sign up at the age of 13? Your child`s friends are on the sites, talking about the media they`ve seen on the sites, and sharing their experiences and stories on the sites. Things that happen happen online, and kids want to be part of the hub. Of course, children under the age of 13 also want to deal with it. And they are. A study by knowthenet.org.uk found that about 59% of 10-year-olds used a social network. Signing up on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram isn`t difficult. Birthdays are easily rigged to inflate old age, and companies very rarely monitor this or even do anything about it.
Parents can pause at the thought of their youngest children using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and rightly so. A child accessing a network shared by billions of people around the world and trying to navigate safely is a daunting thought. Due to the various dangers and effects of social media, it is necessary for parents to prevent their children from using social media until they are at least 13 years old. At this age, they can introduce these apps to their kids, so the process is more gradual and easier to monitor. “I think of my 9-year-old son who, even though he`s not on social media yet, is still at that stage where he wants to do the right thing. He is friendly, responsible, takes care of his friends and comes to me when things are not going well or when he is not sure about something. In other words, there are several ways in which he would be a great social media user. “Deciding how old it should be or who it applies to is considerably less important than people who understand when they visit a platform what the platform is doing to them,” Olson said.
In 2018, CNN Health reported that the average age of children who sign up on social media is 12.6. This age is likely to decrease over time, as Cleveland Health recently reported that half of children ages 10 to 12 use social media. One of the most recent contributions to the study of the impact of social media on teens is that Tik Tok is suspected of causing some children to develop tics, according to a study by the National Library of Medicine. Regardless, there have always been dangers in the use of social media. Whether it`s connecting with potentially dangerous strangers, the risk of pornographic content, or other threats to younger consumers, there`s a reason most social media apps require their users to be at least 13 years old. As you probably know, all the most popular social media platforms have the same age restriction: 13+. (And among the few who don`t, “parental permission” is all it takes to access 13+.) Facebook and most other platforms ask users to confirm that they are at least 13 years old before they can use their apps.