Pre-teens lie about age to use social media

More than half of pre-teen users of social networking sites lie about their age — as more and more children are being exposed to sexual images and bullying online.

CyberSafeIreland has raised concerns that pre-teenage children are not being adequately protected when using social networking sites.

It pointed to data from the Net Children Go Mobile project (studying internet access and use, and risks and opportunities for European children online), which shows that more than half (56%) of pre-teens using social networking sites in Ireland are lying about their age.