Underage Accounts

Most of the commonly used social networking sites are based in the USA and because of this they have to adhere to the law in their country. The US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prevents internet companies from knowingly advertising to young people under the age of 13 and limits the amount of data they can collect about those under 13 as well. Because of this most social networking sites will have an age restriction of 13.

Underage accounts can be reported to the most common social networking services by a young person’s parent or guardian and will be removed promptly once the report is received. However, it’s worth noting that once an account is removed, all the data that was on the account (e.g. images) will also be deleted with it. Commonly parents want an account removed because it is facilitating a harmful behavior. It’s important to remember that removing accounts won’t always stop a harmful behavior and the underlying issue may need to be resolved offline.