Should Facebook Allow Users Younger Than 13?

If you think Facebook and social networking is just for the younger crowd, well, you may be right. And the crowd is younger than you might think.

The terms of use for Facebook states that all users of the site must be 13 years old or older. But according to a Consumer Reports survey, about 7.5 million Facebook users are under the age of 13, and more than 5 million of those users are under the age of 10. The only thing stopping these kids from joining Facebook is the age restriction, but as we all know, people can easily lie about their age on Internet.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is in favor of kids under 13 joining Facebook. Zuckerberg says that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prevents Facebook from allowing users younger than 13 to sign up for the site, and he would like to change that.

Hey, kids are already on Facebook, whether they should be on there or not.  Why not let them join? It would just require a little extra effort on Facebook's part, if they're so concerned with the COPPA. It may as simple as adding extra security measures for the kiddos to ease the concerns of parents.

I'm with Zuckerberg on this one. Let the kids join Facebook. Chances are, they're already on there.