COPPA: The Online Debate Educators Are Ignoring

Over the weekend, Emily Bazelon updated us on the growing interest from Facebook and others in lowering the requirements for allowing children under 13 to access their site.  (Last spring as you may recall Mark Zuckergberg floated -- and then retracted -- the idea of changing COPPA.) Salon has a story about how other countries have tried to address the issue.  Online protections for kids aren't technically an education issue -- they are often discussed in terms of parental rights, Internet porn, and bullying - but they will affect the shape and growth and perhaps even the quality of online offerings that are touted as educational.  I'm not saying that the law should stay the same necessarily but that the debate should include more than just online companies and children's safety advocates.

Comments

[houston]

Having two kids under the age of 13 but always wanting to get on youtube and facebook, I definitely would not mind increasing the age for facebook use. With so many predators out there, anything can happen if a parent has on lapse or slip-up. I personally have nieces and nephews with facebook pages who are age 12. So far there has been no incidence however, this forces their parents to stay involved in their actions on the computer.