Are we breaking social media laws?

 Laws & Social Media

Protecting our students online

Image source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Laws that protect our students online

The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA), the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) are important laws and regulations that pertain to our students when they are online. These are all necessary, and everyone should know about these laws and what they do exactly to protect our students when they are online. This Youtube video by David Schouweiler goes over these laws in detail.

                                    Image source: Terms Feed                 Image source:  Nu EDU Sec

Image source: University of Richmond

CIPA

The Children’s Internet Protection Act was signed as a law in 2000 and updated in 2011. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) helps to regulate this law by limiting the access children have to obscene or harmful content.

COPPA
The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act was signed into law in 1998. New updates were provided in 2013. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates this law by giving the child, under the age of 13, and their parents control over the information that is shared or collected. That is why most Terms of Service Agreements age requirements are 13 or older.

Do they help?

I think that as more and more children learn about social media and become more tech-savvy, it is important to stop and think about the legal aspects of students being on social media. Therefore, it's such great news that we have such laws to protect our students when they are online, however, just having these laws isn't going to do much. Unfortunately, it is up to parents and teachers to supervise students because we are always going to be the ones responsible for them and their actions, especially online where nothing is truly private and safe anymore.

While it is good to have these laws in place, protecting our children becomes harder and harder as they become part of this social-media dominant world, and we see everyone on various platforms. Alongside, if parents are not educated enough or in tune with this technology, they may not realize what kind of sites their children sign up for! That is why not only is it important to have conversations with our students but let parents know what social media is, what kind of platforms are out there, and what their children should or should not be allowed to use based on their age. Parents should also be aware of these online protection laws for children, as they can only do so much. Once something happens such as bullying harassment, or inappropriate content/behavior being shared, it may be too late.

Let's take TikTok for example! TikTok is a platform where people and record and post short videos that others can see and react to. I've been seeing such young children on there that are definitely not 13 and I can guarantee that those children probably did not have parental consent before signing up. Whether it is videos of pranks, dangerous or unsafe activities, or even dancing that may not be suitable for a young audience, there is always something our students and children will see that they maybe should not have seen. Um, how can that be possible? Lack of supervision!

Legal Lies

Image source: Ethical Thinker

Thinking about seeing such young children on social media, we have to ask ourselves: "how often do children under 13 lie about their age?" I think the answer is: all the time. When we live in the age where everything is viral or popular on social media, it attracts people of all ages to participate and be part of the fun. Danah Boyd, researcher and author, expresses her opinion on this matter by stating that "on the internet, every child is 14." 

In a way, we are teaching children to lie about their age just so they can join certain sites and platforms. It is a scary thought and it is a conversation to have with all our children. Again, supervision of our students and children online is up to us. If we see something they clearly cannot be used if they are under 13, it is to be addressed by teaching them that not only is it not okay to be on that webpage since they are not of proper age, but also lying is not something that they can do, especially online where nothing is really safe or private these days.

Laws can only protect students so much: it is up to us to properly supervise and teach them what it means to be online while protecting our information from others.