Facebook sued by father after daughter exposed to sexual predators

Reports claim that Facebook have settled in a case where they were being sued by a father for exposing his 11 year old daughter to sexual predators.

The daughter, who remains anonymous since she is a minor, posted suggestive photos of herself through a number of accounts she set up on Facebook. She also received a number of naked photos from older men on the website.

Facebook since deleted her accounts, but the daughter’s father has sued Facebook for not implementing sufficient safeguards to ensure under-13s cannot sign up for an account. Facebook operate an over-13 only policy. Reports claim that Facebook have settled this case before the trial was due to begin.

The case illustrates two issues that have plagued the site for a number of years.

Firstly on how can Facebook effectively stop under-13s from setting up an account. It is still relatively easy for under-13s to create an account on Facebook, and this was essentially the crux of the court case.

However it is inherently difficult for websites to force users to prove their age without upsetting other users. For example, forcing users to upload photos of either a passport or driver’s license when they create an account is one potential solution, but this isn’t 100% effective since children could simply take someone else’s documents and create an account in that name, and such a move would more than likely irk many of the site’s older users who would worry about the privacy implications of uploading such sensitive documents.

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Secondly the case brings to light the age old issue of who bears the brunt of the responsibility for kids acting inappropriately on Facebook. The parents, or Facebook themselves?

Of course Facebook have a responsibility to protect its users when using its service, but how far can a website go to protect users from themselves? If a girl continually creates Facebook accounts with fake information in order to post suggestive photos of herself, does that highlight a breakdown of communication on the parental-front, or is this issue still largely Facebook’s responsibility?

And perhaps more interestingly, knowing that Facebook have settled this case out of court, is this going to open the floodgates for others who have had underage children access the site and exposed to inappropriate content, of which there is likely no shortage?

Let us know your thoughts below.