A new bill is poised to fight predators in cyberspace, but major online social network Facebook.com says the precautions might be unnecessary.
The bill, which was introduced earlier this month by Pennsylvania congressman Michael Fitzpatrick, will forbid minors from accessing "commercial networking websites" -- such as Facebook and MySpace.com -- from schools and public libraries without parental permission or teacher approval, said Jeff Urbanchuk, Fitzpatrick's press secretary.
The bill's regulations will apply to all of these types of websites, including Facebook, which specializes in recreating an individual college student's social sphere online, according to Chris Hughes, a spokesperson for Facebook.
Despite its relatively stricter privacy controls, Facebook will still be subject to the bill's effects.
On Facebook, a student's profile is shown only to his or her "friends," which are approved by that student, and other Facebook members at that student's school.
However, Facebook's settings can be minimized at the user's discretion to hide an individual's profile from all but his or her approved "friends."
On the other hand, any individual -- member or not -- can log onto MySpace and see anyone's profile.
But even with heightened security measures, Facebook is still susceptible to online abusers.
For example, someone who graduated from high school 10 years ago is able to obtain an account and access profiles of younger students currently in that high school, Urbanchuk said.
In that case, a predator would be able to use Facebook "in order to attract minors for inappropriate purposes," he added.
But Facebook officials, who granted membership only to college students until September 2005, still believe that Facebook is "a safe and secure alternative to something like MySpace," according to Hughes.
Hughes also noted that "there is absolutely reason to believe that we've built the network to be as safe and as insulated as possible."
Though Hughes would not comment on Fitzpatrick's bill, he mentioned that Facebook's privacy controls allows each user enough control to determine how much information is disclosed to the public.
When opening its arms to the high school community, Facebook's privacy policy added a recommendation that "minors over the age of 13 ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet."
While Hughes said that most teenagers are using Facebook responsibly, Urbanchuk is more hesitant to trust them entirely.
"It is hopeful that they would [use Facebook responsibly], but it is true that children wouldn't be apt to ask their parents" for permission, Urbanchuk said.
In the meantime, however, high school students who have begun to take advantage of Facebook are more focused on its perks, and are mostly interested in having fun and meeting new people.
"I think Facebook for high school is a good thing," said Tali Swergold, a high school senior at Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns in Lawrence, N.Y., and a frequent Facebook user. "I wouldn't really care if I couldn't go on [Facebook] at school. Nobody really does that anyway."
Swergold added that even though the bill groups Facebook and MySpace together, the two are very different.
"MySpace is for anyone [and] is random," she said. "It's sketchier."
