Children
We should be sensitive to the minimum age requirements on different social networking sites – often set at 13. These are intended to prevent users below the minimum age from registering for full membership and then being able to publish online. But they also give a clear indication from the site owner about what the owner considers to be a suitable minimum age for casual visitors, even though the site owner may not be able to enforce this.
We should check minimum ages carefully. If we were to post BBC content specifically designed for 6-12 year olds on a site whose stated minimum age is 13, we would run the risk of appearing to encourage visits by 6-12 year olds to a site where contact and content rules and standards are designed to suit teenagers but not children. This might also give the impression that we were encouraging 6-12 year olds to lie about their age in order to interact with that content.
Once uploaded, content clearly unsuitable for 6-12 year olds could very easily be placed right next to BBC content specifically designed for children – and we would in effect have encouraged 6-12 year olds to go there to see it.