The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) today said telecommunication service providers have been requested to encourage parents to prevent underage children from viewing social networking sites on the internet at home.TRC Director General, Anusha Palpita said blocking access to a website would not be effective because underage children would find other ways of accessing the prohibited sites.
“There is not much we can do to restrict children from using social networking sites. Therefore we have appealed to parents through the service providers to control or prevent the use of undesirable sites by using suitable computer software,” Mr. Palpita said.
“The TRC will block a website if it receives a court order to do so. We have already blocked more than 1,000 such websites on Court directives,” he said.
Meanwhile Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site recently reported that daily it blocks more than 20,000 children below the age of 13 from using the site.
(Olindhi Jayasundere) DM
