Obama doesn’t let his daughters on Facebook

By | December 14, 2011, 7:45pm PST

Summary: Facebook may be the world’s largest social network, but it’s not allowed at the White House. US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama don’t let their daughters use the service.

US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama don’t let their daughters on Facebook. The social network may have over 800 million monthly active users, but neither Sasha Obama nor Malia Obama are included in that huge number.

The new information comes straight from the source: both parents sat down for an interview with People magazine for their year-end double issue. Their girls are not allowed on the world’s largest social network for a very simple reason: “why would we want to have a whole bunch of people who we don’t know knowing our business? That doesn’t make much sense.”

It apparently wasn’t a hard decision to enforce at the White House, though the First Lady pointed out that Malia is 13-years-old and Sasha is only 10-years-old right now. That’s when the US President laughed and added “We’ll see how they feel in four years.”

The age question is very important. Technically, only Malia is allowed to have an account on Facebook. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) mandates that websites that collect information about users aren’t allowed to sign on anyone under the age of 13. As a result, Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities require users of the social network to be at least 13 years old (and even older, in some jurisdictions).

Millions of preteens use the service anyway: some get permission from their parents to create an account while others lie about their age to get past sign-up restrictions. Earlier this year, it was estimated that 7.5 million Facebook users are below the minimum age. To make matters even more worrying, more than 5 million were 10-years-old or younger. For its part, Facebook says it’s a very tough problem to solve.

See also:

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Topics

Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications.

Disclosure

Emil Protalinski

Emil has nothing to disclose.

Biography

Emil Protalinski

Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications, including Neowin for two years and Ars Technica for three years. He has written 1,000s of articles for both, with a particular focus on scrutinizing Microsoft products and services. Recently, Emil has expanded his coverage to non-Microsoft technologies, including the social networking giant Facebook.

6
Comments

Join the conversation!

Just In

RE: Obama doesn't let his daughters on Facebook
1019902735 15th Dec
@Aerowind...Facebook is not NEEDED to connect with and/or stay in touch with people.

There are other forms of communication, and more effective ones at that - you know, the type of communication that many people employed before Facebook happy

Not using Facebook makes sense for many, including the children of President Obama.
Didn't anybody ever see "The First Kid"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116311/

I am sure the President has wink
???why would we want to have a whole bunch of people who we don???t know knowing our business? That doesn???t make much sense.???

Methinks they are confused at what Facebook is. Pretty much everybody I know uses Facebook to connect with and stay in touch with people they already know. Facebook studies agree with me.
@Aerowind...Facebook is not NEEDED to connect with and/or stay in touch with people.

There are other forms of communication, and more effective ones at that - you know, the type of communication that many people employed before Facebook happy

Not using Facebook makes sense for many, including the children of President Obama.
0 Votes
+ -
Understandable at this point,
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 15th Dec
Especially given the anti-Obama sentiment out there, and the potential for children to inadvertently disclose an outing that may put them all at risk.
0 Votes
+ -
Not new information, really...
doctorparadox 15th Dec
They've been talking about this for a while, actually:
http://www.tecca.com/news/2011/02/09/michelle-obama-facebook-today-show/
I don't even want to think about what people would would write on the wall of the first daughters. No need for them to be exposed to that. People of that age are impulsive and it is quite probable they would on purpose or by accident change security settings and do other things to put themselves at risk.

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix