Liz Atwood discusses underage users of Facebook in this week's Tween Tuesday:

I don’t know of any parent who would let their child lie about his age in order to buy cigarettes or a beer. But would you let your child lie about his age to sign up for FaceBook? According to a recent article in the New York Times, many parents are doing just that. FaceBook, MySpace and similar networking sites require users to be at least 13 in order to avoid federal regulations.  But some parents are allowing their kids to lie about their age or even setting accounts up for them.

I’ll admit that I was one of these parents a while back. My tween son wanted a FaceBook account like his older brother had. His brother and I were his only friends on FaceBook, but eventually someone at the site must have caught on and deleted his account. Recently he asked me to recreate it again. This time, I said no, mainly because I don’t see any reason for him to have an account now.

Do you know elementary-age children who have accounts on FaceBook or MySpace? Have you allowed your underage children to sign up these sites?