What is the youngest age a child should be allowed a Facebook account?

[neet]

Opinions are welcome...

[H4X0R]

There's actually a law about social networking sites, it's yr9 + so 13+

[Leslie]

16. That's when I got mine. Haha

[little78lucky]

I say 15 with parent supervision.

[me]

id say about twelve

[Mystery Writer Guy]

Children must be 13 or older to sign up. If they signed up when they were younger they pretty much broken the law. Besides children should be making real world friends not pen pals online.

[Delia]

After reading a very scary article on this topic the other day, I have increased the age in which I feel a child should have an account. I think that the child needs to demonstrate solid judgment and be aware of the dangers of the internet before ever considering allowing her to have an account. So, I would say no earlier than 16.
The government has restricted Facebook and similar sites from allowing anyone under 13 to have an account. Which still doesn't stop PARENTS from lying and helping their child set up an account. Which I feel is just playing with fire.

P.S. I believe the article was in a Redbook magazine. Not sure which month, as I picked it up at the doctor's office. It had some terrifying real life stories regarding this topic. Really made me think twice about when my kids will be allowed to have an account.

Edit- All of this aside, parents need to monitor their child's activity on the internet. If you wouldn't allow your kids to associate with random strangers in "real" life, I don't see how the mentality is any different when the people are online.

[Billy]

personally i say when the child is 15-16 and over depending on how mature your child is. recently a family relative gave my 9 year old cousin a facebook account and quite honestly i dont see why as do you know any other children who are 9 that has a facebook account i dont. so basically youre just letting your child roam people on facebook as they can add anybody, you hear of all these stories of people being stalked by people or becoming a target of paedophiles and if that happend to your child youd feel responsible... facebook is made for yong adults and over whoo are mature not for children... hope this helps and makes you think of your childs safety as well

[Raymond]

Dont. As nice as social networking is, the things you post on facebook are there forever. It is in their clauses when you sign up that anything you post and store on any social network site is now owned by the site.
Not to mention the ugly things you can see on those sites. Or the rampant spyware and virus transmission and constant bombarbment of advertising.

I had a facebook the first year it was up, and kept it until just last year. After doing what i could to permanently delete my account, things people posted (pictures of dumb college activities) still come back to me when im looking for a job etc.

While they are great for building an online community, they are just as good at lessoning the amount of face to face interaction.
I found after getting rid of facebook my "friends" circle was much smaller than i thought, despite giving every friend of mine other contact information.

so... if you can avoid it, dont use it. But if you must have a social network account, be very very careful about what you post and what you allow others to post, and don't click any unfamiliar links as these sites are one of the easiest ways for programmers to infect your computwer.

Anonymous just used a friendly looking link to hijack users computers to shut down various

[Sara]

Facebook itself sets the limit at 13 and I'm happy with that. I have 3 children older who have accounts, they are not used on a daily basis though by any means and one child still too young. My children do know about keeping themselves safe on line and have shown a mature attitude in asking my advice if they were not sure of things. I do keep an eye on things but I'm not breathing over their shoulder either. I do feel it is irresponsible of parents to help children obtain accounts below 13 as it is teaching them that breaking rules for your own convenience is ok and I do believe that rules need to be followed whether we agree with them or not