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Townhall...
California Bill
Respects Authority of Parents
By Marybeth Hicks
I have to confess my initial reaction to the headline was to roll my
eyes in contempt for yet another government entity that I assumed was
trying to legislate good parenting. After all, it’s a trend that has
gained traction of late.
Some states are mandating the content of school lunches. Others have
laws about how old kids must be to baby-sit. All states now have rules
about bicycle helmets and federal law dictates when parents can take
the booster seat out of the minivan and put it in a garage sale.
In fact, there are even laws about what sorts of toys and child gear
can be sold at a garage sale. (Short answer: pretty much nothing unless
you have it tested for lead.)
Given the propensity for governments to take it upon themselves to
“assist” parents in the upbringing of our children on the assumption
that we obviously don’t know what we’re doing, I figured a proposed
California statute was just more of the same.
Turns out I’m in agreement with the legislation introduced by the
Golden State’s Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, a Democrat. Not
only is her bill an effort to empower users of social networking sites
and protect their privacy when creating user profiles, but more
importantly, Mrs. Corbett’s bill would restore parental authority over
the online activities of minor children.
Currently, sites such as Facebook have default settings for new users.
When you sign up for a Facebook account, your profile automatically is
set to allow “Everyone” to see your information. You then must change
to more restrictive settings if you want your profile viewed only by
“Friends” or “Friends of friends.”
The California bill would demand that social networking sites do
exactly the opposite - default to a restrictive setting that shows only
your name and city. You then could open the door to your public
profile, rather than close it after the fact.
More importantly to parents, this bill would allow Californians to
demand that sites like Facebook take down within 48 hours information
about their minor children when parents request it.
Like me, your reaction might have been, I already have the right to
demand this, I’m the parent. Unfortunately, according to Facebook’s
“frequently asked questions,” you don’t have that right at all.
Facebook didn’t get to be the world’s largest social networking site by
catering to concerned parents, after all.
The company prohibits users younger than 13 and cooperates with parents
or others who report underage users by deleting their accounts, though
if you want to see the information a child posted on Facebook, you
“may” be able to do so. It’s not an easy process. (There’s notaries,
forms, conforming to applicable laws, etc., to deal with.)
But users ages 13 to 18 are guaranteed privacy by Facebook. Parental
authority essentially is meaningless when your child becomes an
“authorized” user of Facebook. Rather, the company simply encourages
parents to talk with their kids about the best ways to use the site.
We send some strange and conflicting messages to our teenagers. On one
hand, we practically encourage their ongoing adolescence with rules
that regulate whether they can ride a bike to school, much less get a
job or drive a car.
Then again, we let them roam the Internet, facilitating and respecting
their privacy without the means to assert our proper protection and
judgment over their virtual activities.
There probably are a host of unintended consequences with this bill,
but there’s also a germ of respect for parents in it that ought to be
upheld more broadly.
Solid parenting usually will alleviate the need to go around a teen and
demand that information be removed from his or her Facebook page.
Still, a law that reminds social networking companies of the primacy of
parents in the lives of their minor children is a good thing.
Read it at Townhall
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