Definitely a problem we’ve run into, where a child of ours has been asked to do a school assignment based on their use of social networking, while at the same time all or most of the children in that class are too young to meet the age requirements for the service. On the one hand, the school tries to imbue students with some kind of value system that rejects lying and unethical behaviour (according to the norms they work with in the school’s ethos), while on the other hand assuming those values don’t apply here. Mixed messages all round.
Anyway, here’s how it panned out for one set of parents. See TidBITS Opinion: How COPPA Teaches Children to Lie.
