What is Facebook Doing to Protect Children from Sexual Predators?

Facebook has become the second largest social networking web site in the world. Adults and children all over the world have access to finding friends and family they haven’t been in touch with for ages. And not only that, they also have access to groups, and many other networking pages that can prove to be very dangerous for innocent children. Sexual predators are everywhere and on the lookout for web pages like Facebook to find their next victim. So what is Facebook doing to protect children from sexual predators?

Well for starters, Facebook is adding more than forty new safeguards to their site in order to protect its young users from prevalent sexual predators. With more than seventy million users throughout the world, Facebook’s main aim has been to build a safe and trusted web site. They are making several changes to make it safer for its young users to use the web site. Facebook, along with other online networks, inadvertantly created a venue for sexual predators that lure young victims to chat online and sometimes even share images. Among other changes, Facebook has banned convicted sex offenders from their web site, and they have also limited older users from searching online for underage subscribers. Here are some of the other things Facebook is committed to doing in order to make its site safe for children against sexual predators:

•They have agreed to disclose the newly implemented safety procedures on the website to ensure the safety measures are consistent with the specified language.

•Facebook will always accept complaints about nudity or pornography, harassment, and any unwelcome contact through your Facebook address and independent private email addresses.

•Facebook has agreed to address any complaints about nudity and pornography; reports about harassment and unwelcome contact within twenty four hours of the complaint.

•Facebook will report to the complainant within seventy two hours and take appropriate steps necessary against nudity, pornography, harassment, and unwanted emails.

•They have also agreed to allow an independent safety and security examiner to examine and report on Facebook’s compliance agreement.

•Facebook has also provided for its users an accessible hyperlink so that parents and guardians of young children can give feedback on their safety and security examiner about responding complaints.

•They will allow their safety reports that evaluate the performance of complaints to be done annually in order to recommend additional safety measure that need to be taken.

Although Facebook has taken steps to ensure more security for young children against sexual predators it is always a good idea to help your own young children keep themselves safe. Here are some suggestions:

•Don’t share personal information online that others can use and find offline. Personal information includes your screen name, photos, social security numbers, address and phone numbers, etc.

•Make sure that you teach your child how to use privacy settings. Most social networking websites have a variety of different privacy settings you can use so that only users who you choose can view your personal information.

•Teach your children never to respond to emails or attachments they were not expecting.

•Always install safeguarding programs that monitor and filter capabilities. That way you can keep an eye on the computer and what’s going on.

Ensuring the safety of young social net workers is a growing concern for all network providers around the world. It should also be a big concern for parents, and parents need to keep track of what their children are doing to stop the problem before it even starts.