What you should know
Facebook’s Youth Portal is a great place to help young people to learn the basics
Facebook has created the Youth Portal, an area designed to help young people get to know the social network. It shows young people a range of things, like how to set up their account and the features they can use to make their account safer.
Let your child know about the Youth Portal but also take the time to explore it together. You might want to start with the Facebook basics section, which covers security, safety and privacy. This could be a useful way to have a conversation about how to stay safe on Facebook.
Facebook’s Safety Centre is a useful hub for learning about safety on the social network
The Safety Centre is a good place to get familiar with Facebook’s different safety features. It’s got helpful information and advice on their policies and tools, such as how to report and block, as well a wide range of resources on everything from online bullying to keeping Muslims safe online.
Facebook updates the Safety Centre frequently, so make sure you check back regularly to see what’s changed and how this might affect your online safety rules and routines.
Even if your child’s account is set to private, other people can still send them friend requests
In Facebook’s settings, you can edit who can send you friends requests, choosing either ‘Everyone’ or ‘Friends of Friends’. We recommend the ‘Friends of Friends’ option. But this still means that people your child doesn’t know might be able to send them a friend request.
Have a conversation with your child about not accepting friend requests from people they have never met and show them how to delete friend requests.
