Facebook’s teen mistake

Facebook is trying to open up teens to the adult world. Unfortunately for them (and teens and parents) this is a terrible mistake.

Not a week goes by without another story of an adult doing something colossally stupid on social media and paying the price. So why in the world did Facebook think it advisable to allow 13-year-old kids to make their pictures and status updates public?

In a widely-decried move, Facebook announced last week that underage users — those between 13 and 17, as kids younger than 13 are technically not allowed to open accounts — would now be able to share their status messages and updates with the world and accept “Followers” on the site. In non-tech terms, that means that teenagers can now make their pictures and life updates accessible to a group of people they don’t necessarily know (“Followers”) and the world at large.