Facebook Sued by Father of Girl Who was Exposed to Sexual Predators When She was Aged Just 11

by Cassy Fiano | September 14, 2015 12:59 pm

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, finding out their pre-teen child has been exposed to sexual predators online. And one father successfully sued Facebook after his 11-year-old daughter was reportedly in just that situation.

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A father has sued Facebook for failing to enforce its age restriction policy after he claims his daughter was exposed to online sexual predators at the age of 11.

The man, who has remained anonymous, secured an undisclosed payout from the social networking website.

A trial had been due to begin last Monday after four years of legal wrangles. It is understood the social networking site settled out of court.

His daughter, from Northern Ireland, who is only referred to as GS in legal documents uploaded sexual pictures of herself online and used a series of Facebook accounts to contact men.

The accounts were later taken down by the social network.

But the family’s lawyers claimed Facebook had a ‘duty of care’ towards the girl and was ‘negligent’ because it has no system in place to stop users from misrepresenting their ages.

Court documents obtained by The Sunday Times said: ‘By registering an account and using Facebook the child might be exposing herself to sexual predators or other grave risks affecting her emotional and physical health.’

They added: ‘[Facebook] are obviously aware that children who should not be using Facebook are doing so by using the simple device of misrepresenting their age.’

While Facebook should indeed make it more difficult for children to misrepresent their ages, this father’s anger seems to be misplaced — after all, it’s not Facebook’s fault that his daughter lied about her age and posted inappropriate racy pictures online. Maybe he should be more vigilant about her time on the computer, and stop expecting Facebook to do the parenting for him.

Endnotes:
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