And you thought mini-feed was invasive...

In an agreement with 49 attorneys general, Facebook is vamping up its safety policies. They will have a new "Report Abuse" icon and users under 18 will have to read their new "Safety Tips" upon signing up.

NYT also reports

Facebook will also no longer let people significantly change their ages without review and has agreed to take down within 24 hours any material flagged as inappropriate...The company is developing behavioral technology to weed out fibbers...Such technology could, for example, identify when someone is friends with people of a significantly different age — an indication that perhaps an older person is trying to contact young people.

I'm sure the only people that read the new "Safety Tips" will be the people who read "User Agreement and Guidelines" contracts while installing software.

And predators...make sure you get your age right the first time.

This is all well-intentioned obviously but it seems a bit much. As far as I know it's not illegal to friend someone online that is a different age than you. What are they going to do with these flagged people? Send their names to the FBI, or worse: Chris Hansen? And don't most predators pose as minors anyway?

This all comes down to users not being idiots. The updates Facebook has made to its privacy tools in the last year or so are great and more than enough to protect yourself.

While the above child-related plans sound fancy enough, they won't make a difference. For the most part, kids that get themselves into these issues are stupid to begin with or have parents that are neglectful in their guidance. No amount of government intervention or company changes are going to solve those problems.

Coming up: "Users required to submit birth certificates and fingerprints to Facebook"