Facebook. It's quite a phenomena. It's really the "face" of the internet. There's hardly a person, a product or a show that isn't somehow linked to the huge social network. And now the pool of users is about to increase.
Internet magazine, MASHABLE.COM:
Facebook Lowers Age Rule to Allow Teens to Post Publicly
Facebook is giving its teenage users a public voice on the platform. For the first time, beginning Wednesday, users between the ages of 13 and 17 will be able to post publicly and obtain followers of their profiles.
Previously, teens using Facebook were only able to share content with friends, friends of friends and custom groups like "family." Now, they can choose to share posts to anyone on Facebook, just like users 18 and older.
Facebook is making this change despite numerous stories of cyber bullying by people using the social network hub as it's forum. Last week I posted about the two girls in Florida, 12 and 14 years old who used Facebook to online bully another girl, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, into taking her own life.
Hey, wait a minute, aren't they under 18? So now their activities in bullying will expand to everyone, not just qualified friends and family. It also means that they will be exposed to more "strangers" than before. Perhaps even predators. Is this sounding a little odd -- especially the timing of this reducing the restrictions when a young girl took her life because of activities allowed on Facebook. Are young kids really capable of handling this site? I don't know. Ask the late Rebecca Sedwick or her two harassers. If they couldn't have accessed or posted on FB, would Rebecca still be around?
While pondering that, consider the even more shocking news from Facebook this week. According to the terms of service (TOS), that thing you never read but clicked that you agreed to anyway, has made some changes.
Are they tightening restrictions? That would make sense.
No. They're actually loosening them. Until this week, certain behaviors were prohibited on Facebook -- no nudity and no extreme violent (involving death) videos were allowed.
Okay, especially if you're going to have kids as young as 13 freely roaming the social network, those prohibitions make sense. Or at least they did.
BEHEADING VIDEOS ARE NOW OKAY ON FACEBOOK
But Nudity Still Isn'tFacebook has lifted a ban on beheading videos, establishing a policy that allows the graphic videos to remain on the site so long as they are not celebrated by the people posting them.
The social network, which allows anyone 13 and older to become a member, issued a temporary ban on the beheading videos in May, following complaints from the Family Online Safety Institute. Under the new policy, images that “glorify violence” as well as those depicting a woman’s “fully exposed breast” will still be banned, the BBCreports.
Well now, aren't you glad the progressive thinkers over at Facebook are looking out for our kids. It's now allowable for them to watch violent acts such as a beheading, but be relieved that they are still spared the shock of glimpsing of a naked woman's breast.
What kind of society are we that we find the human body profane, but violent acts of death permissive?
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?
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