Now I know that a lot of kids under 13 join Facebook and chit-chat like adults.
In fact, it is proven statistically(there was a survey/research about it) that 5% of the people who are in Facebook are under 13.
At first, it was 16. Facebook probably worried about adult contents and stuff.
But the reason why they now reduced it to 13 and why they still have age limit is not that it is inappropriate for kids.
It's just a friendly social networking site. Common, it is not bad for the next generation to get connected and lead the evolution.
But the reason why they still have the age limit is that the law, or to be specific, the international law states that when a website collects information from someone under 13, they have to get parental consent.
You know that 1. Facebook is a data mining company just like google, and 2. It is not possible for them to check every parental consent with a scan of their signature, passport of them and the kids, and etc, and there are just so many stuffs needed to be done. And it's dangerous and not secure to send those kind of extremely sensitive and private and important informations and such over the internet, even if it's secured, because the computer that receives or sends out those stuffs cannot be completely secured.
So if you're wondering why your kid can't join facebook, that is the reason. But for a fact, I do believe there is a feature in facebook where you can send facebook exactly what I just mentioned as part of the parental consent. If you are willing to risk your economic power, go ahead. But it is better for the kid too because they have to learn first to protect their data. Also, if you're under 18, you get extra protection from Facebook. You can get more information from http://www.facebook.com/help where it contains many help articles and you can search for a specific information about privacy policy, how they control your data, and why there are certain age restrictions and how they/the system work.
So that's it, and I hope you enjoyed and learned something useful today!
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