In a settlement with New York, Facebook has agreed to beef up security on its social networking site, but the chairman of a 50-state task force says the site still has a long way to go.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Facebook must go beyond the New York settlement.
"Much more must be done to protect children on Facebook. Our national coalition will continue fighting to make Facebook and other social networking sites safer," Blumenthal said. "We will explore all options -- including possible legal action."
Blumenthal co-chairs the national social networking task force of all 50 attorneys general with Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina.
In the absence of federal action, states have targeted social-networking sites, primarily Facebook and Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and their users. Facebook had been seen as a prime acquisition target but the spate of litigation and prosecutorial pressure may have taken some of the bloom off its rose.
The 50-state task force is expected to urge that Facebook and similar sites adopt the following measures:
• Requiring age and identity verification for users 18 and older, and parental permission for users younger than 18.
• Implementing filtering technology to screen out sexually explicit, racist, violent or other mature images and significantly increasing the number of staff reviewing such images.
• Prohibiting sexually explicit and other inappropriate word and phrase searches.
• Hiding minors' profiles from adults.
• Limiting minors' search options.
• Removing inappropriate advertising targeting minors.
• Barring minors from accessing sexually orientated and other inappropriate web site groups.
"New York's settlement with Facebook is a step forward, but giant strides are needed to make the site safer," Blumenthal said. "We will demand that Facebook take powerful, practical measures -- age and identity verification, parental consent, purging inappropriate content, restrictions on minor access to inappropriate material. Dramatic, drastic changes must better shield children from sexual predators, unsuitable content and unsafe adults.
New York settlement
Earlier this week, Facebook scrambled to adopt measures demanded by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo charged that Facebook had taken weeks to respond to some consumers' complaints about abuse and solicitation of children.
"If it's illegal to do on the corner of Main and Fourth Street, it's illegal to do in the Internet space," Mr. Cuomo said in a Wall Street Journal interview. "The question becomes who enforces the law; who's responsible for it?"
