Facebook removes ‘20,000’ underage users each day

Approximately 20,000 children under age 13 are removed from Facebook for lying about their age every day. This was divulged during testimony by one of Facebook’s privacy advisors before Australia’s parliamentary cyber-safety committee. Also, nearly half of all 12-year-olds in the U.S. are using social networking sites, despite not meeting the minimum age requirements for sites like Facebook. This according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And social networking increases tremendously once the teens grow older: roughly 64% of 13-year-olds are networking online; between the ages of 14 to 17, that figure jumps to 82%, says Pew. Any user no matter age can register for Facebook by simply lying when signing up – the giant has no mechanisms to detect whether a teen is telling the truth or not.