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[felicelam]

The current Facebook rules require that users be at least 13 years old in order to join and set up a Facebook profile. However, Facebook may soon open the floodgates and allow younger children to join the social network as well.

A report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that Facebook is actively working on policies and controls aimed at allowing younger Facebook users. The article claims, “Mechanisms being tested include connecting children's accounts to their parents' and controls that would allow parents to decide whom their kids can "friend" and what applications they can use.”

The minimum age requirement on Facebook is more or less a joke anyway. Simply lying about your birthdate easily circumvents the policy, and Facebook does little (if anything) to enforce it. The arbitrary age cut-off seems to exist solely as some sort of legal protection for Facebook so it doesn’t have to address requirements stipulated in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The full article can be found here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/256740/f ... er_13.html