Draft French Law Aims to Crack down on Minors’ Use of Social Networks such as Facebook
Despite the fact that many prominent social media platforms
such as Facebook and Instagram have a stated minimum user age of 13, underage
individuals continue to create accounts and make frequent use of these
services. While this may not be inherently damaging in itself, the fact that
these platforms are public and created with an older user-base in mind means
that pre-teens who make use of these sites do risk exposure to inappropriate
content or, as unpleasant as the thought may be, predatory behaviour.
Well it seems that the French Government have had enough of
this apparent looming threat to the younger generations, as a new draft law
presented last week would make it a legal requirement for children under the
age of 16 to acquire parental permission to open an account on Facebook, or
indeed any other social network.
The legislation forms part of a larger bill which, according
to The Telegraph, seeks to adapt data privacy regulations and improve
access to the information internet companies gather, store, and in many cases
sell to other firms about people's online activity.
“Joining Facebook will involve parental authorisation for
minors aged under 16,” Nicole Belloubet, the French Justice Minister, stated
rather plainly.
In practice, the draft legislation would amount to a simple
tick box which confirms that permission had been obtained from the child’s
parent or legal guardian. Ticking this box would be considered a declaration governed
by law, but questions remain as to how this would be enforced.
A tick-box system is very easy for any underage users to get
around, as they are already doing largely the same thing under the current
system. As such I can’t really see the law having much of an effect as
pre-teens would simply continue to lie about their age in order to gain access
to the platform, and it does seem rather unreasonable to prosecute the parents,
particularly if they have no knowledge of their child doing such a thing. The
legislation would also have no tangible effect on the hordes of underage
accounts already active on the platform; honestly, I can see more problems than
inviting prospects with this legislation.
As stated however this is simply a draft, and must be passed
by parliament before it can become law. It will be interesting to see if that
comes to fruition, but a few gaps are already appearing in the drafted bill
that will need ironing out first, at least as far as I can tell.
Sam
is an aspiring novelist with a passion for fantasy and crime thrillers.
Currently working as Editor of Social Songbird, he hopes to one day drop that
'aspiring' prefix. Follow him @Songbird_Sam
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Draft French Law Aims to Crack down on Minors’ Use of Social Networks such as Facebook
Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, December 20, 2017
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, December 20, 2017
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Unknown
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