Child became injured, mother did not inform me. Child put it up on facebook wall, I was soon alerted by friends and family. Child now recieved compensation and Facebook page was evidence. Judge was supportive of situation.
Child is now upset as mother is trying to take away facebook due to it being illegal and unsafe has even involved the school. Wrong it is a determination to stop my contact.

I agree children should be protected from Abuse. That should be done through Knowledge and education. Take away social networking sites and another route will be found by people to find / groom childern.

Give more education/ training. Support the younger community and protect them. Don’t just remove for the wrong reasons.

My sister DEfriended me on facebook and my mum doesnt really think she will get up to anything naughty. I know otherwise. As I managed to get her password one time and saw a few messages (the reason she defriended me)

I dont want to tell my mum as it will cause her hassle.

I am trying to find a way to tell facebook there needs to be a way for parent or guardians or responsible older family memeber in my situation to monitor without the child’s knowing their online facebook activity.

They are minors and dont require that privacy for their own safety. Whether they know and want it or not.

Facebook is suitable for young people when used appropriately. but the majority of children use the site to upload pictures half naked and what not goodness knows…..and talk about sexual things i.e “giving head” one of my sister friends put in a comment. They also talk about getting DRUNK at 14! I know kids do these things buh why condone it and let it be spoken about freely online. i think its wrong.

Im an adult and I dont even speak about these things.

So in the argument of making facebook for 18+ I would have to agree.

Facebook need to stop being selfish by wanting to be the biggest and the best when it comes down to it facebook is no longer a clean and legitimate site for underaged children.

Some major deterrents need to be put in place for parent guardians etc or the ban for minors needs to be put in place A-SAP!

I’d like to address this comment in more detail than Twitter allows.

Scam Detectives doesn’t “jump on bandwagons”. We have a genuine concern for the safety of children. If this sometimes means that we come across as “Mary Whitehouse-like” then we offer no apology for this.

TV and Radio in the UK have to comply with strict guidelines about what can be broadcast before the 9pm watershed, and DVDs are subject to BBFC ratings which are legally enforceable at point of sale.

If Iggle Piggle threw off his costume and pranced around the “Night Garden” stark naked, snorting cocaine and shouting “I want to sh*g Upsy Daisy” there’d be uproar, and not one person would be saying “Well, why were you in the kitchen washing up while your kids were watching telly unsupervised…”

Why? Because parents expect that CBeebies will maintain standards and age appropriate content in their programming.

These controls are put in place not to absolve parents of their responsibility to ensure that what their children see and hear is appropriate, but to support them in ensuring that their children’s access to inappropriate material is restricted and they can have some confidence in the media they allow their children to see.

Parents can further mitigate the risk of their kids seeing inappropriate stuff by not allowing them to have TVs and DVD players in their bedrooms, so if they want to watch films and TV, they do so in the company of their parents.

The risk comes from your kids watching films in other places, such as at friends houses, where parents don’t necessarily apply the same standards as you do, so you may find that when little Johnny stays over at little Pete’s house, he gets to watch “Nightmare on Elm St part 27″ and has nightmares for a month afterwards.

The Internet is no different. How can you be sure that your kids are not accessing Facebook in cybercafes, at public libraries or at school, or at “little Pete’s house”. Whatever controls you put in place at home, kids WILL find a way to circumvent them.

By asking Facebook to enforce their own policy of “no under 13′s” by introducing a software solution to ensure that no underage kids can join up or access the content on the site, we are not advocating censorship, jumping on a bandwagon or vilifying Facebook as a plaything of the devil.

We’re just asking them to support parents in their endeavours to keep their kids safe by putting bouncers on their doors and barring access to under 13′s.

Is that such a bad thing?

Kids will get online at libraries, cybercafes, at school and at friends houses and it’s virtually impossible to control what they do or where they visit online at these locations.

You may be 100% certain of what your kids do at home, but do your kids friends parents take similar precautions or put controls in place to make sure their kids (and yours) are not seeing this content or chatting with strangers?

That’s why we believe that sites like Facebook have at least equal responsibility to ensure that those who are underage cannot access the content on their websites.

If Facebook is going to trumpet their belief in “Free Speech” as a reason for allowing objectionable content to be published on their website then they have to accept that responsibility.

My child (under 13) cannot get onto the internet without me entering a password and I sit and surf with him the entire time. I am aware of what information is available about him on his profiles, and that teach him about safe surfing and what NOT to post as we go and why.

Teaching safe web practices to your child is another safety lesson parents should teach their children. It’s nice that sites like Facebook are committed to providing information to this effect, but ultimatley it is my responsibility to monitor my child’s web useage and teach him how to be safe online, not Facebook’s.

Parents also should not expect websites to police the activities of their children online; instead they should take responsibility for their childrens’ online safety themselves. Parents should not blame Facebook if their 10 year old opened an account without their knowledge and didn’t prevent it from happening with spohisticated authentication systems, instead they should ask themselves what they were doing when their child was surfing the net unsupervised.

Another option might be for Facebook to use a credit/debit card, scheme, where a small fee is taken from the card, and you then have to complete the registration by entering the amount debited – 1.03p This works in a simiar way to Paypal.