Home-schooled teens are being kicked off the social networking site Facebook.com. The site bans home-schooled kids from joining the site because without a valid school e-mail address, their identity can not be verified.
Lockhart teen, Jennifer Smith, says the policy is not fair.
"I was shocked and upset and I was really confused," she said.
Facebook says they do not plan to change this policy any time soon. It is a tool they use to make sure sexual predators are not using their site.
Some home-schooled teens and their parents have stated a petition online hoping to push Facebook to change their policy.
Source: Fox 7 Austin, TX
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=6014956&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1
It's hard to fault Facebook for enforcing its clearly stated terms of use policy on users under the age of 18, which relies upon a valid school email address for verification of identity. While there are lots of differing opinions about social networking websites, I'm sure that most believe security measures to protect kids from predators are important. While Facebook's policy might upset home-schooled kids, and some of their parents, it is hard for me to imagine parents wanting security measures removed. It does seem to me that given Facebook's allowing adults (who don't have valid school email addresses) to join, there should be some solution that Facebook could develop. But, that means Facebook would have to invest time and resources on the solution. So, I can understand their reluctance to engineer for an exception.
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