A new initiative by Facebook will result in younger users of the site being less visible to people searching under the social graph facility.
The people who will be impacted by this are those who are between the ages of 13 and 17. The age and location of the youngsters will only be given to their friends and friends of their friends who are in the same age group.
So, for example, if an adult were to look for 16 year old females on it they would get no results back, while a 16 year old will get results for the same search provided that they have friends, or their friends have friends, of that age.
Suspended If Your Age Is In Doubt
A spokesperson for Facebook said that they take the security and privacy of their users very seriously. If there are any doubts about whether the person has lied about their age (either by saying they are older or by saying that they are younger than they are) then Facebook say that they will suspend the account until they get official government issued identification sent to them.
Another issue is that anyone who is younger than 17 can’t share their posts publicly and that all of the site’s location services are automatically turned off for youngsters, although they can ask to have them turned on if they want them.
A trial version of the new search facility has been on the go since January and it is currently available to selected users from the group who have their language on the site turned to the US version of English.
