If you didn't hear the news. A 17-year-old girl was murdered by her Facebook friend. The girl "friended" a s*x offender who was pretending to be an 18-year-old boy. He was actually 35.
Now parents and outsiders are blaming Facebook and demanding that they put it "safety" options on their site for greater protections. There are just a few problems with this logic and I have some questions.
1) Why didn't her parents monitor her on Facebook?
Facebook wasn't intended for teens. This social networking site was originally designed so that college students could stay in touch with college friends while they were away at school. The site wasn't opened up to the public. That just happened maybe within the last five years. My daughter has a FB page and I monitor it. That was a condition for having one. Everyone on her page she knows. We talked about internet safety and predators. She knows better to not "friend" anyone she doesn't know.
2) The victim lied to her parents and said she was spending the night at a friend's house when actually she snuck out to meet this guy.
I don't understand this. Why didn't the parents check up on her? My kids go to slumber parties and I check. Either they call me or I call them. And I also talk to parents.
3) There's an argument that teens shouldn't be on line.
Here's my take. The world has changed. I don't think anyone under 13 should be on line, but it also depends on a child's maturity. I have heard about parents who let their children as young as 6 get on line. That's when they are most vulernable to predators. Parents need to talk and parent their children. They aren't doing this. Now they want Facebook and every other government agency to do the job for the. That's not how parenting works.
I'm sorry for this family's pain. I really wish this incident never happened. Facebook can add all the safety filters it wants, but it's up to parents to educate their children and keep them safe.
Posted By: Marsha Jones
Friday, March 12th 2010 at 9:22AM
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