After the ban on mobile phones at junior and middle schools, the French government now wants to ban the use of Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram for children under 16 without parental permission.
On Wednesday, December 13, Nicole Belloubet, the French Minister of Justice, has unveiled the draft bill to pass before parliament.
A "Better protection" for minors
The minimum age to register on Facebook today is 13 years old. The social network has aligned itself with US law. But just lying about your age and voila, a Facebook account is created without anyone can verify the real person's age.
"Minors under 16 will be better protected," says Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet. "Because it will require the authorisation of the parental authority holders to consent to the processing of their data by the services such as social networks."
The text does not yet explain how parenting permissions could be collected and verified, or whether current users under the age of 16 will be able to keep their Facebook account.
20,000 kids accounts removed per day
According to comments made by the site's chief privacy adviser at the time, Mozelle Thompson told the cyber-safety committee of the Australian Federal Parliament that "Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage," referring to children under 13 using the social network.
However, according to the Comscore Institute, at the same time, 3.6 million people under the age of 13 would have connected to Facebook every month.
And still, at the same time, the American association Consumer Reports showed that in 2010, more than 20 million minors under the age of 13 had used the social platform.
In a more recent study conducted by EU Kids Online, in Europe, in 2010 one in three young people aged 11 to 12 years held a Facebook account.
In 2014, it was one in two. And 22 per cent of children aged 9 to 10 are on the social network.
Facebook employees' warning alarm
Chamath Palihapitiya participated in the worldwide success of Facebook. He was the former vice president in charge of growing the audience of the social network. He now forbids his children to use the social network.
"It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are," he said.
"The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works: no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.
"And it’s not an American problem.
"This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”
And this is not to mention cases of moral harassment between adolescents, threats or even paedophilia with the expansion of social networks.
The new app for children
Facebook did not offer comments on the new draft law banning its network for children under 16 years in France.
Ironically, a few days before, the company announced the launch of a new version of its messenger application for children under 13, 'Messenger Kids.'
"Today, parents are increasingly allowing their children to use tablets and smartphones, but often have questions and concerns about how their kids use them and which apps are appropriate," Facebook's Loren Cheng said in a statement.
"So when we heard about the need for better apps directly from parents during research and conversations with parents, we knew we needed to develop it alongside with the people who were going to use it, as well as experts who could help guide our thinking.
"In addition to our research with thousands of parents, we've engaged with over a dozen expert advisers in the areas of child development, online safety, and children's media and technology who've helped inform our approach to building our first app for kids."
