The attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia announced Thursday that Facebook has agreed to changes to better protect underage users from predators and inappropriate content.

In addition, the social networking site has agreed to participate in a task force on implementation of age and identity verification software. The agreement is similar to one that MySpace reached in January with 49 states and the District of Columbia. MySpace agreed to form a task force, which Facebook has joined, to explore and develop age and identity identification tools for social networking sites.

Speaking about the agreement, VA Attorney General McDonnell notes, “This is another positive step in our ongoing work to forge effective public-private partnerships in the effort to better safeguard children on the Internet. I thank Facebook for agreeing to this partnership with us. I also commend Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut for leading this effort, as well as all the attorneys general who have played a role in today’s announcement. A safe and secure Internet is crucial to the economic vitality of the Commonwealth and the country. Through partnerships such as this one we are making great progress in keeping children safer online.”

Since 2006, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper have led a working group of state attorneys general seeking to make social networking safer. Along with Connecticut and North Carolina, the multistate group’s Executive Committee includes Virginia, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.

Changes agreed to by Facebook include providing automatic warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an unknown adult; restricting the ability of users to change their listed ages; acting more aggressively to remove inappropriate content and groups from the site and requiring third party vendors to adhere to Facebook’s safety and privacy guidelines.

Under the changes, the first time a Facebook user wants to change his or her age, website staff will review their profile to determine whether the change is appropriate. In addition, companies offering Facebook users services, called “widgets,” will now have to implement and enforce Facebook’s safety and privacy guidelines.

Facebook also has agreed to maintain a list of pornographic websites and regularly sever any links to such sites. It will remove groups for incest, pedophilia, cyber bullying and other violations of the site’s terms of services, as well as expel from the site individual violators of those terms.

Facebook also will:

- More prominently display safety tips

- Require users under 18 to affirm they have read Facebook’s safety tips when they sign up

- Regularly review models for abuse reporting and perform a test using the New Jersey Attorney General’s abuse reporting icon

Virginia has been a national leader in the area of youth Internet safety. In 2006, Attorney General McDonnell convened his Youth Internet Safety Task Force which resulted in the passing of sweeping reforms of the laws governing Internet predators, as well as the implementation of statewide educational initiatives.

A copy of the final Youth Internet Safety Task Force report can be found on the Attorney General’s website.