Facebook Accounts For Kids Under 13 Years Old

Currently, a Facebook account can only be created by people over 13 years of age. Although, many kids under 13 have made Facebook accounts by entering fake date of births.


Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is considering to allow kids under 13 years of age to use the social network. A research shows that about 8 million under 13 year olds' have Facebook accounts, illegally. Zuckerberg is now thinking of making Facebook accessible for kids.

But, it isn't as easy as it sounds. By allowing kids to use the social network site, the site will have to deal with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA enforces very tight rules against how websites deal with children. That's why to avoid all the hassle the site is only accessible for people over 13 years of age.


Right now, talks are going that the company is working on different technologies to make the site safer to use for kids. It is said that, initially the child's Facebook account will be linked to the guardian's, that way the site will not be monitoring the child's activities only the guardian will i.e adding friends and permission to use apps etc.


By doing so, Facebook can also generate some revenue by targeting products for the children to the guardian's account. This idea sounds promising and to me it looks like it might become a reality someday.