Social networking sites are a new minefield for parents to negotiate in the battle to keep their children safe from sexual predators and bullies. But not all parents realize the dangers that social networking presents unsupervised. Perhaps more worrying is the fact that many parents admit they do not have time to monitor their children’s social activities online. But they blame the site for not having adequate measures to protect their children.

Sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube does not allow children younger than 13 years to have the account in the theory. In fact a recent survey found that 10% of users facebooks under the age limit. Facebook does its best to overcome this, claiming he could eliminate the 20 000 children younger than 13 years every day. This site is aware that this is not enough, but citing the inherent difficulty of enforcing the age restriction online, where lie about the age that is almost second nature, and where many parents let their pre-teens to create an account even though the restrictions.

How can this problem be overcome?

Parents should be the first line of defense. Its unimaginable that parents do not have the time to ensure the safety of their children. It starts with communication. Litany dont talk to strangers the same applies in cyberspace as the original. Children must understand that they cannot any friends that send them invitations. Some children may collect friends in an attempt to prove their popularity, but the dangers do need to be addressed.

Some children of friends may be on the assumption that they’ve met someone somewhere but cannot remember where. They need to understand that to ignore friend requests from random people are not rude but wise.

Apart from communication, parents would do well to join the same network as their children and their friends. Kojo Baffoe, editor of Human Destiny, suggests that parents ask their children to help them join social networks like Facebook. This allows parents to discuss the privacy settings and determine how smart their children’s privacy.

Once parents and their children connected online, it is important that they take a back seat and do not try to dominate children’s activities. They have to look for suspicious activity addresses but by and large just have to monitor and do not interfere.

Application of the second line of defense of third parties. Monitoring software available to help parents of children online to monitor their activities. For example, the software can be installed on a computer that provides parents with reports on email, messaging and social media activities, as well as links to phishing sites, sexually suggestive messages and other red alerts. This report provides detailed information but did not provide an overview of potential areas of concern.
Social network itself is a last line of defense. Have a privacy protection policy in place is not enough. Network must have technology in place to enforce them. Parents and legislators to put increasing pressure on social networks to protect children who dont know better than cyberbullies and sexual predators.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller believes that one reason hasn’t privacy is a priority associated with the young owner of the startup. “It’s my general feeling that the people who are 20, 21, 22 years really has no social value at the moment,” he said at a Senate subcommittee dealing with the privacy of mobile commerce.

But parents may want to blame a lot of social networks, they must realize that they can not shirk their responsibility to educate their children and provide them with social tools to take care of themselves.