References

Consumer Reports: Press Room. (2011, October 05). Retrieved September 25, 2012, from http://pressroom.consumerreports.org/pressroom/2011/05/cr-survey-75- million-facebook-users-are-under-the-age-of-13-violating-the-sites-terms-.html  
   “Consumer Report’s” has long been a reliable magazine for different surveys. These statistics come directly from the consumers themselves. There is no fluffing or unreliable information. This is an accredited source to go to find quantitative numbers and surveys. 

Troianovski, A., & Raice, S. (2012, June 04). Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 25, 2012, from http://online.wsj.com/article
    The Wall Street Journal is published by the DOW Jones and is one of the most respected newspapers in the country. It has about 2.1 million readers in circulation across the country. They have an excellent team of writers and some have even won Pulitzer Prizes. The Journal reports mainly on economic and financial issues, and this article would fall under financial issues. 

Davis, M. R. (2012). Facebook considers access for 13-and-younger crowd. Education Week, 31(35), 13. Retrieved September 25, 2012, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022004098?accountid=14541
    Education Week is a respected magazine for people in the education field. The magazine has some of the best articles for educators and people who are interested in education to read. Since this article deals with the educational side of this development, it is an accredited source. 

O'Reilly, A. (2012, September 29). 'Sorry to hear you tried to kill urself... next time finish it': One young woman's harrowing account of how cyber-bullies pushed her to breaking point. The Daily Mail [London]. Retrieved September 30, 2012, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210661/Sorry-hear-tried-kill-urself-- time-finish-One-young-womans-harrowing-account-cyber-bullies-pushed- breaking-point.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
   The Daily Mail is London’s biggest entertainment magazine. While that in itself may not exactly convince someone that it is accredit, remember that entertainment magazines only tend to falsify celebrity stories. Since this is not a celebrity story, it is safe to say that the newspaper is accredited. 

Kowalski, R. M., & Limber, S. P. (2007). Electronic Bullying Among Middle School Students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41(6), S22-S30. Retrieved October 1, 2012 from http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2807%2900361- 8/fulltext#sec2.1.
   The “Journal of Adolescent Health”, like “Education Week”, is a trusted, accredited source for subjects dealing with adolescents and their development. Because this topic has to do with adolescents, it is accredited. 

Department of Health and Human Services. (2008, December 28). http://www.hhs.gov. Retrieved October 1, 2012, from http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm
    This law comes straight from the horse’s mouth, so to say. It is very reliable because it is the actually law that was drawn up by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Conclusion

       Facebook has quickly become an Internet staple for many teenagers, college students and adults throughout the world. It is an excellent tool that allows people to keep in touch with current and long-lost friends and co-workers. However, until now, there has been no room for “under thirteen’s” in this social media craze. This past summer, Facebook announced it’s plans to open their website up to this new demographic through new functionality being developed that will link children to their parents profile so that their activities can be supervised.
       After analyzing the benefits of both sides, ethical issues, and security hurdles, it is clear that it will be possible for Facebook to make this change successfully. With the right technology and sensitivity towards cyber-bullying and security laws, Facebook will be able to open their website up to a new market that will provide them with many new advertising opportunities. Also, children will be able to profit from new educational tools that teachers will employ and Facebook might develop, as well as benefiting from connection to their peers and family.

Security Issues and Hurdles

       The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 bans children under the age of thirteen from joining websites that release personal information. “Personal information” includes- but is not limited to: first and last name, addresses (physical or electronic), phone number, or a Social Security Number (Department of Health and Human Services, 1998). However, under this law, children are allowed to enter these websites under “verifiable parental consent.” This parental consent is achieved through, “any reasonable effort including a request for authorization for future collection, use, and disclosure described in the notice, to ensure that a parent of a child receives notice of the operator's personal information collection, use, and disclosure practices, and authorizes the collection, use, and disclosure, as applicable, of personal information and the subsequent use of that information before that information is collected from that child” (Department of Health and Human Services, 1998). This ensures that legal guardians are fully aware and understand that their child’s information is online and available to other users of the website.

       Facebook, in the past, has not allowed children to enter their website because they did not have a way to ensure parental consent. The new Facebook functionality will connect the parent and child’s profile, so that parents will be fully aware of what their child is doing online.

Ethical and Social Issues

       The financial and educational benefits to both parties are obvious. But the moralistic issues that may be present need to be discussed. What are the consequences of introducing social media to such a young age group?
       Since the introduction of social media, cyber bullying has been a problem. Although Davis (2012) suggests that as long as children are taught to use social media safely, there should not be any problems with cyber bullying. However, how can this be proved? The “safe” introduction of a new age group to social media will not necessarily exclude them from falling victim to the practice. Cyber bullying has serious repercussions. One victim of cyber bullying accounted her experience saying she ate more because of stress, gained weight and tried to get herself sick. She claimed to have attempted suicide on four separate occasions (O’Reilly 2012).

       According to Kowalski and Limber’s (2007) study, at least 11% of teenagers online have been bullied and this number has been rising over the past couple of years. It is suggested in the study that electronic bullying has become much more common than traditional bullying because of the anonymity it provides for the bully.
       This will definitely become more of a concern as Facebook (and possibly other social media sites) ushers in a new generation of users. In order to act responsibly, the company will have to take very strong measures in order to regulate and decrease cyber bullying among this age group.

Benefits

Benefits to Middle School Students
       How will opening up Facebook be beneficial to these young children that Facebook will allow to create accounts? Davis (2012) believes that integrating Facebook into young children’s lives will help to educate them about social media before they get in trouble with it. The majority of cyber bullying happens because teenagers are irresponsible with social media. By introducing its benefits early on and in a controlled environment, students will be able to use social media in a responsible way (instead of in a harmful way).
Some educators also see this potential decision by Facebook as opening up another way to help them teach their lesson plans more thoroughly, by using social media to connect with their students. They believe that with the introduction of integration between school and social media for young kids, teachers will be have another way to assign homework and that students will be better able to communicate with each other regarding group work.

Benefits to Facebook Corporation
       Perhaps introducing Facebook to a younger generation will open some doors to educators on how they teach their lesson plans. However, because nothing is a one-way street, Facebook Corporation must also see some benefits for introducing its website to this younger demographic.

       Most obviously perhaps, introducing a new age group to their current demographic, Facebook will be opening doors for the type of companies that will be interested in advertising on the site. Suddenly, instead of just seeing advertisements for General Motors and makeup brands, Facebook users will see advertisements for Nickelodeon shows and Kraft Mac & Cheese. With the added interest that Facebook will receive from companies targeting a younger audience, the company could potentially make more revenue than it did last year with $3.7 billion (Troianovski and Raice, 2012).
       However, there is another implication of introducing Facebook to middle school aged students. Facebook has much collaboration with different corporations around the world. It earns much of its revenue in this way. In fact, last year, 12% of Facebook’s revenue came from its partnership with Zynga Inc.- creator of games such as Farmville (Troianovski and Raice, 2012). By allowing younger children who are likely to play more games than the current population, Facebook will open itself up for not only more game- based collaborations, but also for increased revenue in this field.

Introduction

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When Facebook was launched in 2004, it was only accessible to Harvard students. As its popularity grew, it expanded slightly to a few other Ivy League schools. As it became even more popular, it became accessible to universities and businesses all over the country. In 2005, high school and international students began using Facebook. Today, Facebook has more than 900 million users. It seems like we are always updating our status or “poking” people or accepting new friend requests. It makes sense that the next logical step could be to include middle school students in this phenomenon. The current site’s terms of service disallows people under thirteen from creating a profile, in order to protect the privacy of young children. 

However, according to a Consumer’s Report survey (2011), there are 7.5 million children under 13 who have a Facebook profile, violating the website’s terms of service. To make the website even more accessible to the thirteen and under demographic, Facebook recently announced their plans to: “allow children younger than 13 years old to use the social-networking site under parental supervision” (Troianovski and Raice, 2012). Facebook will provide functionality that will enforce “parental supervision,” by requiring parents to link their profiles to the profiles of their children so that they can supervise their child’s friend requests, messages and news feeds.
Opening the website up to this new demographic raises many questions. What will be the benefits of including pre-adolescents? What will be the benefits to Facebook? What will be the benefits for the children? What ethical issues and social issues will accompany this decision? For example, is ten years old just too young to be connected socially? Will the decision by Facebook and the new Facebook functionality be in compliance with current federal laws that require children to be over the age of thirteen on social media sites?