
Michelle Obama Doesn't Want Her Kids Using Facebook - acconrad
http://mashable.com/2011/02/09/michelle-obama-kids-facebook/
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tptacek
My kids (9 and 11) aren't going to be allowed to use Facebook at 13 either.

It bothers me a bit --- it's something I've considered Asking HN --- that what
meager writing ability I have, I gleaned from dialup BBS's in the early '90s;
my kids lack a similar forum.

This is a big deal. Holding everything else at a low constant threshold, the
ability to write and to take tests practically guarantees a B average. On a
single day, no, hell, between build cycles! we write comments on HN that'd
pass muster as a middle school essay. I've tried to communicate to my hemming
and hawing son that I write stuff of similar length for enjoyment, and he
doesn't get it.

~~~
ralphc
Your kids will have an account, if they don't already. No special software is
needed, just a browser and the ability to remember a password. School,
library, friend's house...in this war it isn't you vs. them, it's the
smartest, most motivated kid they know vs. the dumbest, most apathetic adult
they know.

~~~
tptacek
An account on Facebook, is what you're saying? No, they won't.

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ralphc
Yes, Facebook. If they ever go to a friend's house and they have a computer,
or go to school...kids in my church get on Facebook at school all the time,
either with no effort or I hear them talking about how to get around blocks
with proxies, and these aren't the geeks, these are the "normal", average tech
knowledge kids.

~~~
tptacek
My kids are in an especially unfortunate (for them) situation vis a vis their
ability to circumvent parental controls. Sure, they can try to use a Facebook
account entirely from their friends house, but why bother? There's so little
value in doing it that way that the cost of slipping up just once demolishes
it.

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w1ntermute
> There's so little value in doing it that way that the cost of slipping up
> just once demolishes it.

The average child doesn't do an in-depth cost-benefit analysis before deciding
whether to disobey his/her parents. With the right mix of peer pressure and
childlike impulsiveness, your children will have Facebook accounts in no time.

~~~
tptacek
Yes, and by that logic, will also surely be smoking, drinking, smoking up, and
whatever else they've made after school specials about. Human trafficking?
Overly-leveraged options speculation?

My point here is just, unlike a lot of parents, I'm pretty well situated to
control my kids use of the Internet.

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javanix
With the amount of vitriol thrown around in American politics these days, I
wouldn't want my kids directly exposed to a public forum like that if I was in
the Presidential family.

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Volscio
Well there's also a significant danger of security leakage if the girls talk
about what their family is doing, I guess.

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krakensden
I doubt Mr. Obama tells them national security related things, they're a
little young for that. I have no doubt they would be subject to well organized
and foul trolling if anyone could locate them online.

~~~
javanix
I don't think that's what he meant. Even simple things like "We're going to
Disney World tomorrow" could be dangerous in the wrong hands, especially if
the trip wasn't publicized beforehand.

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ern
Since children under 13 are not allowed on Facebook it's a moot point
regarding Obama's daughters.

And if they did get accounts, they'd be reported very quickly:
<http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage>

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kingkilr
Maybe that's true if your last name is Obama, but both my sisters had accounts
before they were 13 (hell my youngest sister still isn't 13...).

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ladon86
Right, but they're not really allowed. They're breaking the TOS and they
haven't been reported yet.

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mc32
Can you imagine:

"My dad said he wasn't going to sign that FTA with [country X]"

"No, I heard him say he really can't stand senator [from state X].

"My mom and I will be going shopping at [some store] at around 2."

"Yeah, I actually saw the King of [country] in the oval office --It's supposed
to be a secret."

Not saying their daughters would have loose lips as exemplified above, and the
example are highly unlikely as they would be trained to avoid such statements,
but you could imagine people mining what they say to try to infer from what
they post and extrapolate as well.

It would be a profitable mine for the opposition as well as for any wrong-
doers.

~~~
sfphotoarts
doesn't this mean though that you'd have to keep them off the internet in
general? It's not like (no pun intended) Facebook is the only forum for
expressing one's opinions.

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michaelchisari
I'm not a big fan of young kids on Facebook either, but I do think that having
a "safe" social network for the under-13 crowd would be good, and because of
it's ubiquity, Facebook isn't it.

I'd prefer something owned and operated by the schools themselves. I've had a
feature in Appleseed for a while now which lets you block or allow social
networking domains based on regular expressions.

In the US, since all schools get a domain, a junior high in Wisconsin could
block all domains except *.k12.wi.us, so that only other students could
connect.

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jerf
"I'd prefer something owned and operated by the schools themselves."

I strongly disagree. Part of the point of these things would be to not be the
school, to _emphatically_ not be the school. My BBS days would have been much
less interesting if everything had to be sanitized for school authority
consumption.

At some point children are no longer in school. It would be nice if they have
some miniscule amount of experience in being in a not-school environment, what
with that making up the majority of their lives. If schools are anything they
are already too large, in terms of the footprint they leave on our children's
lives.

~~~
tptacek
In fact, there has already been legal drama with schools objecting to what
students write about their classes and teachers and seeking to punish them for
it. I agree, affiliation with the school system is a liability, not a benefit.

~~~
michaelchisari
Older students would have their school profile, and their non-school profile,
just like they have their school email address, and their non-school one. It's
really not much different.

As to the litigiousness of school administrators around free speech issues,
that's something that will have to be worked out with social networking
whether schools run their own networks or not.

But when you're dealing with the pre-teenager crowd, I don't think it's as
much of a legal issue.

~~~
tptacek
The _teachers_ at my kids schools don't all use their school email accounts.
None of the students I know of do. No, not super interested in waiting for the
schools to figure this out, or helping to push them there. I don't know why
this should have anything to do with schools; in fact, getting outside the
little social circles inside a school is one of the major wins to this.

~~~
michaelchisari
That may have more to do with the lack of interest in email that most kids
have, than any anti-institutional preference of 8-12 year olds, though.

~~~
tptacek
No it doesn't. The teachers use email incessantly. My kids use email
regularly.

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Rariel
I'm surprised bullying hasn't been mentioned in this discussion. That's one of
the main reason I plan to keep my unborn children off the internet as long as
possible.

It's interesting though, when I was 13 my parents took TV away from me during
the weekdays, but I still got to use my computer and AOL account. I think I'll
be limiting my kids use of the internet for non-school purposes. This reminded
me of the chinese-mother article from the other day--sometimes we know what's
best for our kids before they do. Getting on facebook at age 13 is not good
for kids in a society filled with obesity and online bullying. If anything
severely restrict and monitor. I intend on requiring the password to all my
kids social networking profiles--there is no way a 13 year old can have a
reasonable expectation of privacy from their parents!

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SageRaven
Our home has no broadcast TV. We do Netflix and Hulu for some (mostly advert-
free) entertainment. My 12-year-old son can only go online via the living room
PC (mostly because he doesn't have a PC in his room) and my 15-year-old
daughter has mostly free-reign to do what she wants online via her netbook.
I'd _much_ rather have my kids reading and writing stuff online (even if some
of the correspondence was questionable), as opposed to drooling in a trance
while watching the boob-tube.

Call me a parent with weird priorities, but I'd rather my kids hold their own
on places like Reddit and (yes, even) 4chan over watching much of the crap on
TV (extreme left/right hate politics on CNN/FOX/CNBC, Hanna Montanna, reality
TV, etc.). Not that either of them know of Reddit or 4chan yet (that I'm aware
of), but I assume you catch my meaning.

Of course, the 'net does have a lot of TV-like mindless crap that can be just
as (in my opinion) soul-killing as TV; things like Farmville and other
pointless drivel. However, the kids don't seem to get hung up on stuff like
that. Yet. We'll see, I guess.

This brave new world of parenting is always a mixed bag, isn't it?

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benwerd
Club Penguin is the go-to place for the tween set, no?

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michael_dorfman
Yes, for the younger side of the tween set. There's an unfilled gap, though,
between Club Penguin and Facebook, at least according to my eldest daughter,
who went on Facebook the minute she turned 13, literally-- she sat there with
the form filled out, the mouse hovered over the "submit" button as the clock
struck midnight. For her, Club Penguin lost its shine around age 11, and I was
a hard-ass in terms of sticking to the Facebook TOS-- according to her, _all_
of her friends were already on Facebook, and I tend to believe her, as it took
her less than 18 hours to rack up more "friends" than I have.

~~~
ligerhearted
I'm 17 and grew up on Halo CE with xchat back around 2001 to 2003. A large
portion of my teenage years (and most of my friends') was spent on Halo 2 as
well...4chan was all the rage 2005-2008. Early 2008 until now it's been
supplanted by HN and Reddit.

When I wasn't playing Halo, I spent a lot of time reading and editing
Wikipedia, which might be something for kids to try out now. But Wikipedia's
barrier to entry has risen significantly...one of the reasons I've quit the
community there.

Eventually, it'll turn into a war between time spent on "productive" sites and
activities, and time masturbating to porn, in my experience.

~~~
mahmud
Children read 4chan? I can imagine >= 15, but really, younger than that?

That's a pretty disgusting thought.

~~~
ligerhearted
4chan isn't just /b/ and /b/ isn't all of 4chan as the saying goes...

Most of my time there was on /g/ /w/ and a few other boards like /mu/, but I
first got hooked because of the raids on Wikipedia. 4chan is a fascinating
place, not just full of CP as some would think.

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adulau
Right, they should use Internet instead, an open library to the world
knowledge.

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scrame
Good.

