Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced Thursday that the social networking site Facebook will implement new restrictions to prohibit misuse of the site by child predators. Negotiations for the agreement between 49 Attorneys General and Facebook was led by Massachusetts and several other states and follows a similar one with MySpace entered into in January. Texas is the only state that has not entered agreements with Facebook or MySpace.
As part of the agreement, Facebook plans to impose 40 safeguards, including establishing a hotline for law enforcement inquiries, preventing users from altering their ages and blocking mechanisms that would prevent access to minors’ profiles. Facebook will also heighten its monitoring of website content, including that of contact information and inappropriate material.
