Online meeting place Facebook is cleaning up its act. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced last week an agreement with social networking website Facebook to enforce safeguards against obscene content and sexual predators using the site. The agreement calls for Facebook to respond and begin addressing complaints of nudity or pornography or unwelcome contact within 24 hours of receiving them, and to report to the complainant within 72 hours on how it will respond. This must come as a relief to parents of pre-teen adolescents who are spending considerable time on the site, catching up with friends they saw only hours ago in school. "My son is constantly checking Facebook while he's doing his homework, says Mariam. "He claims that he's getting help from his friends, and as long as it's not affecting his grades, I don't see the harm in it. I feel it's a child-friendly online community. I even catch up with my young nieces and nephews on it, and it let's me tune in to my kids' profiles and see what they're up to. These social networking sites are attractive. We want to make sure they re safe, Cuomo said at a news conference. Facebook will have the safest interactions of its kind on the internet. The agreement with NY Attorney General also calls for Facebook, which has about 47 million users, to allow someone independent - and approved by Cuomo s office - to report for two years on its compliance with the new safeguards. Under the agreement, the Palo Alto, California-based company will have to post the safety procedures on its website. We care deeply about our Facebook users and today we pledge a solution, said Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer for Facebook, who joined Cuomo in announcing the agreement. We believe that safety is an ongoing process. In response to a question, Kelly said Facebook receives tens of thousands of complaints a day, not all of them about inappropriate content. With the agreement, he said, complaints about unwelcome content will be pushed to the top of the queue. Cuomo said he hoped that other social networking sites would follow Facebook s lead. He said his office was in discussions with other sites, but he declined to name them. "With all the pornographic spam my kids get on their e-mails, Facebook's safeguards make me feel a bit more relaxed about the time they spend online, Mariam told Daily News Egypt after the recent agreement between the NY Attorney General and Facebook were discussed. "But, still, the internet is not the safest place for children so I still have to keep a close watch, she adds. With AP
