8 ms·

Michelle Obama Doesn't Want Her Kids Using Facebook

53 points by acconrad 16y ago

ern 16y ago
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 http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- arst 16y ago
  It won't be a moot point for long; Malia turns 13 in July.
- kingkilr 16y ago
  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...).
  - ladon86 16y ago
    Right, but they're not really allowed. They're breaking the TOS and they haven't been reported yet.
michaelchisari 16y ago
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.
- roc 16y ago
  A portable, federated, school-based social network might be an interesting end-run around the data lock-in problem. You could pitch the solution as a sort of portal-with-social-network-features to the school (something they're all keen to have) and you'd wind up with a huge userbase and a steady stream of profiles that want to port-out or echo-out from their school-based service each and every year. And, as even large schools are tiny on an internet-scale, scaling problems are vastly simplified. Then each outside service that wanted to be able to take these profiles in, or allow a link between an in-school profile and one of their profiles (so Sue's uploads to the photography club make it to the flickr stream their parents can subscribe to), would essentially be signing on to a common data format and interchange protocol.
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    That's part of my plan for Appleseed. Which is more than a little ironic, considering how Facebook got it's start.
- jerf 16y ago
  "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.
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    After a certain age, yes, I know I appreciated the freedom of BBS's when I was a teenager as well. But up to around 13, building your social network around your classmates makes sense. And the ability to exclude older children, and non-students, as well as be able to monitor their activity also makes sense. There isn't the strong need for privacy when you're nine than there is when you're 14.
benwerd 16y ago
Club Penguin is the go-to place for the tween set, no?
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      Children read 4chan? I can imagine >= 15, but really, younger than that? That's a pretty disgusting thought.
      - ligerhearted 16y ago
        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.
javanix 16y ago
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.
- Volscio 16y ago
  Well there's also a significant danger of security leakage if the girls talk about what their family is doing, I guess.
  - krakensden 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      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.
adulau 16y ago
Right, they should use Internet instead, an open library to the world knowledge.
tptacek 16y ago
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.
- Splines 16y ago
  Isn't a place like this (or reddit or any of the many special-interest forums out there) an equivalent replacement for the BBS era? Are the available platforms just not productive for "long form" writing?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I like places like this, but Reddit isn't the answer; it needs to be populated by and welcoming to "tween-age" kids while not being entirely restricted to them. It's a tough mix to get right.
    - euroclydon 16y ago
      Trajectory - I feel that's the only hope for what you desire for your kids -- that you put them on a trajectory to become the kinds of adults who will write essay quality posts on forums one day. Try to visualize an online forum with fifteen year olds writing well thought out posts to each other. Try to visualize those kids. I can't. Not enough of them exist. It seems the closest you could get would be a Doogie-Howser-esque kid conversing with adults, or the opposite, one who's mastered short, slang, text-message type communications with his peers.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        Yeah I think you missed the sentence in my original comment about how I found the environment we're talking to on dial-up BBS's --- if you could get that back when you had to tie up the phone line for your family to type a comment, it has to be possible today. ;)
mc32 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
Rariel 16y ago
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!
- SageRaven 16y ago
  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?
scrame 16y ago
Good.

53 points by acconrad 16y ago

ern 16y ago

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 http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
arst 16y ago
It won't be a moot point for long; Malia turns 13 in July.
kingkilr 16y ago
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...).
- ladon86 16y ago
  Right, but they're not really allowed. They're breaking the TOS and they haven't been reported yet.

michaelchisari 16y ago

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.

roc 16y ago
A portable, federated, school-based social network might be an interesting end-run around the data lock-in problem. You could pitch the solution as a sort of portal-with-social-network-features to the school (something they're all keen to have) and you'd wind up with a huge userbase and a steady stream of profiles that want to port-out or echo-out from their school-based service each and every year. And, as even large schools are tiny on an internet-scale, scaling problems are vastly simplified. Then each outside service that wanted to be able to take these profiles in, or allow a link between an in-school profile and one of their profiles (so Sue's uploads to the photography club make it to the flickr stream their parents can subscribe to), would essentially be signing on to a common data format and interchange protocol.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  That's part of my plan for Appleseed. Which is more than a little ironic, considering how Facebook got it's start.
jerf 16y ago
"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.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  After a certain age, yes, I know I appreciated the freedom of BBS's when I was a teenager as well. But up to around 13, building your social network around your classmates makes sense. And the ability to exclude older children, and non-students, as well as be able to monitor their activity also makes sense. There isn't the strong need for privacy when you're nine than there is when you're 14.

benwerd 16y ago

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

michael_dorfman 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    Children read 4chan? I can imagine >= 15, but really, younger than that? That's a pretty disgusting thought.
    - ligerhearted 16y ago
      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.

javanix 16y ago

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.

Volscio 16y ago
Well there's also a significant danger of security leakage if the girls talk about what their family is doing, I guess.
- krakensden 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.

adulau 16y ago

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

tptacek 16y ago

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.

Splines 16y ago
Isn't a place like this (or reddit or any of the many special-interest forums out there) an equivalent replacement for the BBS era? Are the available platforms just not productive for "long form" writing?
- tptacek 16y ago
  I like places like this, but Reddit isn't the answer; it needs to be populated by and welcoming to "tween-age" kids while not being entirely restricted to them. It's a tough mix to get right.
  - euroclydon 16y ago
    Trajectory - I feel that's the only hope for what you desire for your kids -- that you put them on a trajectory to become the kinds of adults who will write essay quality posts on forums one day. Try to visualize an online forum with fifteen year olds writing well thought out posts to each other. Try to visualize those kids. I can't. Not enough of them exist. It seems the closest you could get would be a Doogie-Howser-esque kid conversing with adults, or the opposite, one who's mastered short, slang, text-message type communications with his peers.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Yeah I think you missed the sentence in my original comment about how I found the environment we're talking to on dial-up BBS's --- if you could get that back when you had to tie up the phone line for your family to type a comment, it has to be possible today. ;)

mc32 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

Rariel 16y ago

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!

SageRaven 16y ago
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?

scrame 16y ago

Good.