As reported by the BBC, an Irish father is sueing Facebook over the issue of suggestive photographs of his 12 year old daughter. Images of the child, as described by the man's solicitor are described thus: "She appears heavily made-up, she appears in a provocative pose and she appears much older than her 12 years".
All in all, pretty grim really, except for one thing. The child created the account herself, entered details to fool Facebook into thinking she was older, and put the photographs there *herself*. Apparently, according to MoronDad, this makes it Facebook's fault, and not his for being unable to control his daughter. Facebook should apparently just *know* that she was under age. His idea is that everyone should have to give details such as a passport number. Which is absolutely nuts, but according to the solicitor "An age check, like asking for a passport number would be a simple measure for Facebook to implement." Errr, no. Firstly, this would mean that Facebook would have to have access to passport data to cross check. Second, it would mean that you could only access Facebook if you had a passport. Third, what's to stop the duplicious little girl stealing MoronDad's passport, since fourthly, if MoronDad is as thick as it seems, he wouldn't be keeping it safe.
Really, there does come a point when a parent has to take some sort of responsibility for their child, doesn't there? We're reaching insane situations if this case is taken seriously.
Well said Phil. I get so irate every time I see one of these nanny state stories. Let alone the madness of giving a leaky service like facebook access to crucial personal data, or the face-palm stupidity of MoronDad at suggesting a security system that would leak faster than the Titanic -> the whole "It's someone else's fault" attitude really gets my goat (llama).
Honestly, do it's like we need to have a computing passport before people are allowed to own a PC at times... ;)
Posted by: Llordllama | September 09, 2011 at 02:40 PM