Why are five million children on Facebook if it does not want them?

An estimated 5.6 million Facebook clients – about 3.5 per cent of its US users – are children who the company says are banned from the site. Facebook and many other websites bar people under age 13 because the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act re¬quires websites to give special treat¬ment to children 12 or younger. The law aims to stop marketers prying personal information from children or using their data to advertise to them. Sites must get parental permission before allowing children to enter, and must take steps to protect privacy. Facebook declines to acknowledge that many of its efforts to block children are not working.