Facebook 101

Facebook privacy for minors

Facebook has several policies in place to help protect minors. For example, children under the age of 13 are not allowed to use Facebook. Facebook also offers extra privacy protections for users under the age of 18. However, these protections aren't very strong. For example, minors do show up in public search results, and anyone can view their most basic information, like their names and profile pictures.

Unless minors set privacy controls, their other personal information—including contact information, photos, and updates—can be viewed by their friends and their friends' friends, which includes people the minor may not know or wouldn't otherwise want viewing their information.

We recommend that parents talk with their children about how to use Facebook safely and help them set privacy controls that make sense.

For a complete explanation of Facebook's privacy for minors, visit Facebook's Family Safety Center. Also review Facebook's Privacy Policy for more detailed information on Facebook privacy.

Now that you understand the basics of Facebook privacy, you're ready to start using Facebook's privacy controls. You'll learn how to adjust all of the most important privacy settings in the next lesson.