Facebook OKs Safeguards To Fight Obscenity

(CBS/AP)  New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced an agreement with social networking Web site Facebook to enforce safeguards against obscene content and sexual predators using the site.

The agreement calls for Facebook to respond and begin addressing complaints of nudity or pornography or unwelcome contact within 24 hours of receiving them, and to report to the complainant within 72 hours on how it will respond.

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Larry Magid talks with Chris Kelly, Facebook's Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer

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It also calls for Facebook, which has about 47 million users, to allow someone independent, and approved by Cuomo's office, to report for two years on its compliance with the new safeguards.

"These social networking sites are attractive. We want to make sure they're safe," Cuomo said at a news conference. "Facebook will have the safest interactions of its kind on the Internet."

Under the agreement, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will have to post the safety procedures on its Web site.

"We care deeply about our Facebook users and today we pledge a solution," said Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer for Facebook, who joined Cuomo in announcing the agreement. "We believe that safety is an ongoing process."

In response to a question, Kelly said Facebook receives tens of thousands of complaints a day, not all of them about inappropriate content. With the agreement, he said, complaints about unwelcome content will be pushed to the top of the queue.

Cuomo said he hoped that other social networking sites would follow Facebook's lead. He said his office was in discussions with other sites, but he declined to name them.

[eggy1620]

This will accomplish nothing. Kids talk dirty to each other, period. Kids send explicit material to each other. The only way to keep adults out of the kids%u2019 conversation is to require registraion with a social security number and have the government involved in determining who is over 18 and who is under. And no kid is going to alert a parent to unwanted attention when that means revealing to the parent what the kid wrote in the first place.

[Krazcarl]

At least someone is trying to do something. I''m bot familiar with the site either a marketing ploy maybe but at least it will give parents some room to help their children.

[slim1h2o]

Facebook is lame...

[gmond]

Why is Facebook being singled out? I hadn''t even associated that site with kids, much less heard or thought about that site in years - bad press is better than no press, I guess.

[nothappyatall]

But the point is--with pictures, TMI and no idea whose looking, predators no longer have to be content with the choices near their home--they don''''t even have to converse with who they plan to harm--just read the info, match up schools, last names and cities and workplaces. Take the time to find them and wait. The facebook users would never see it coming. And the killer/rapist can travel from anywhere in the world to pick up his prize. Myspace and Facebook will be the new tool for predators and serial killers--watch.

Posted by toldyouso21"

You have a vivid imagination and a lot of paranoia, in reality in a country of 300 million people, high profile events of pedos travelling 2000 miles to grab and kill some kid they stalked on the net for months are as rare as hen''s teeth, you only hear about them because they are PUSHED out all over the media. Far more common is a family member or friend of the family molesting and/or killing the kid as happened to Jessica Gage by a family friend. Again, if PARENTS did their job their kids wouldnt HAVE these problems on-line, and if you cant monitor YOUR computer and YOUR kids better then its time to unplug the machine, box it up and dump it off at the goodwill store becasue we out here are not going to do YOUR job FOR you 24/7 we got our own things to deal with!