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SAN FRANCISCO: Top US state attorneys announced
Thursday that Facebook has agreed to get tougher on keeping its
young users safe from bullies, porn, pedophiles and other online
hazards.
Facebook has agreed to a child-
protection pact similar to the one sealed with leading
social-networking website MySpace in January, according to
Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal.
“We are raising the safety bar,
first for MySpace and now Facebook, and soon for other sites as we
fight for an industry gold standard. Facebook and MySpace are
showing how to aim higher and keep kids safer,” he said in a
statement.
A goal of the coalition headed by
Blumenthal and his North Carolina counterpart Roy Cooper is the
development and implementation of technology that verifies ages and
identities of people using social-networking websites.
The safety enhancements agreed to
by Facebook include severing links to pornographic websites and
booting users linked to incest, pedophilia or “cyberbullying,”
according to Blumenthal.
“Building a safe and trusted
online experience has been part of Facebook from its outset,”
Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly told Agence France-Presse.
Facebook has grown to more than
70 million users worldwide since it was launched in early 2004 by
Mark Zuckerberg while he was a student at Harvard University.
--AFP
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