Social Plugins

Information for Child-Directed Sites and Services

When you use Social Plugins or the Facebook SDK for JavaScript on sites or services, including apps, that are directed to children, or on sites, apps or services where you knowingly collect personal information from children, you are responsible for complying with all applicable laws.

For example, in the United States, operators of web sites, apps or services that are directed to children under 13 or that knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 must comply with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This document includes the alternative code that you are required to use for our Social Plugins and the Facebook SDK for JavaScript in the United States and any other country or state where applicable laws require child-directed sites and services to distinguish themselves from other general audience sites, apps or services.

The social plugins that you may use depends on your determination of which of the following categories applies to your site, app or service:

  1. Primarily child-directed. Your site, app or service is directed to children whose primary target audience is children under the age of 13.
  2. Mixed audience without age gate. Your site, app or service is directed to children but its primary target audience is people who are at least 13 years old. Your site, app or service does not include an age gate. An “age gate” generally is a mechanism that asks users to provide their age or date of birth in a non-leading way before they access a website or service. For more information click here.
  3. Mixed audience with age gate. Your site, app or service is directed to children but its primary target audience is people who are at least 13 years old. Your site, app or service uses an age gate. An “age gate” generally is a mechanism that asks users to provide their age or date of birth in a non-leading way before they access a website or service. For more information click here.

Social plugins that are not included in the applicable category for your site, app or service should not be used.

Primarily Child-Directed

You offer a child-directed site, app or service whose primary target audience is individuals under the age of 13.

  • Use only the social plugins listed below.
  • Set the kid_directed_site parameter to true on all plugins.
    This step is only necessary when you are not using the Facebook SDK for JavaScript to create the plugin, and indicates to Facebook that your site, app or service is directed toward under-13s.
  • Set kidDirectedSite to true in the FB.init() call when using the Facebook SDK for JavaScript.
    This indicates to Facebook that your site, app or service is directed toward under-13s.

Allowed Plugins

Like Button

Let people share pages and content from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click, so all their friends can read them. You must not enable the show_faces parameter. You may not use the version that allows users to append comment or content.

Follow Button

Let people subscribe to public updates on Facebook. You must not enable the show_faces parameter.

kid_directed_site Parameter for Plugins

All of the allowed plugins should be loaded with the kid_directed_site parameter set to true. If using the iframe version, append the kid_directed_site parameter to the URL in the src attribute:

<iframe
src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/like?href=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F&amp;amp;kid_directed_site=true"
  scrolling="no"
  frameborder="0"
  style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px"
  allowTransparency="true">
</iframe>

kid_directed_site Parameter for the JavaScript SDK

Further, you must modify how you initialize the Facebook SDK for JavaScript to include a parameter kidDirectedSite. This ensures the kid_directed_site parameter will be set on all Plugin and other requests to Facebook servers. You can do this in one of two ways, depending on how you currently initialize the SDK.

FB.init() parameter

Before: 

FB.init({ appID: <APP_ID>, status: true, xfbml: true });

After: 

FB.init({ appID: <APP_ID>, status: true, xfbml: true, kidDirectedSite: true });

URL Fragment

Before: 

https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1

After: 

https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;kidDirectedSite=1

Mixed Audience without Age Gate

Your site, app or service is directed to children but its primary target audience is people who are at least 13 years old. Your site, app or service does not include an age gate.

  • Use only the social plugins listed below.
  • Set the kid_directed_site parameter to true on all plugins.
    This step is only necessary when you are not using the Facebook SDK for JavaScript to create the plugin, and indicates to Facebook that your site, app or service is directed toward under-13s.
  • Set kidDirectedSite to true in the FB.init() call when using the Facebook SDK for JavaScript.
    This indicates to Facebook that your site, app or service is directed toward under-13s.

Allowed Plugins

Like Button

Let people share pages and content from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click, so all their friends can read them. You must not enable the show_faces parameter. You may not use the version that allows users to append comment or content.

kid_directed_site Parameter for Plugins

All of the allowed plugins should be loaded with the kid_directed_site parameter set to true. If using the iframe version, append the kid_directed_site parameter to the URL in the src attribute:

<iframe
src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/like?href=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F&amp;amp;kid_directed_site=true"
  scrolling="no"
  frameborder="0"
  style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px"
  allowTransparency="true">
</iframe>

kid_directed_site Parameter for the JavaScript SDK

Further, you must modify how you initialize the Facebook SDK for JavaScript to include a parameter kidDirectedSite. This ensures the kid_directed_site parameter will be set on all Plugin and other requests to Facebook servers. You can do this in one of two ways, depending on how you currently initialize the SDK.

FB.init() parameter

Before: 

FB.init({ appID: <APP_ID>, status: true, xfbml: true });

After: 

FB.init({ appID: <APP_ID>, status: true, xfbml: true, kidDirectedSite: true });

URL Fragment

Before: 

https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1

After: 

https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;kidDirectedSite=1

Users Confirmed to be Under-13

Where users have affirmatively represented to you that they are under 13, you should not use our plugins for those users. If you want to continue using our plugins on sites, apps or services where your users are both over and under 13, you must take following steps for those users that you know are under 13 years old. When implemented, they will prevent the plugins that you otherwise use for your site, app or service from loading to the page for the under 13 user.

  • Exclude any iframes with a facebook.com domain as the src.
    This prevents any social context being loaded from Facebook.
  • Remove any XFBML tags such as &lt;div class="fb-like" /&gt; or &lt;div class="fb-comments" /&gt;.
    This removes any social plugins that are loaded using XFBML.
  • Remove the Facebook SDK for JavaScript.
    This stops the SDK from rendering any XFBML tags (which may be social plugins) on a page.

Mixed Audience with Age Gate

Your site, app or service is directed to children but its primary target audience is people who are at least 13 years old. Your site or app includes an age gate.

When users of your site, app or service that tell you they are at least 13 years old, you may use any of our standard general audience plugins.

Where users have affirmatively represented to you that they are under 13, you should not use our plugins for those users. If you want to continue using our plugins on sites, apps or services where your users are both over and under 13, you must take following steps for those users that you know are under 13 years old. When implemented, they will prevent the plugins that you otherwise use for your site, app or service from loading to the page for the under 13 user.

  • Exclude any iframes with a facebook.com domain as the src.
    This works to prevent any social context being loaded from Facebook.
  • Remove any social plugins tags such as &lt;div class="fb-like" /&gt; or &lt;div class="fb-comments" /&gt;.
    This works to remove any social plugins that are loaded using XFBML.
  • Remove the Facebook SDK for JavaScript.
    This works to stop the SDK from rendering any XFBML tags (which may be social plugins) on a page.

If you offer a general audience site, app or service that implements age gates, and as a result know that specific users are under 13, you must follow the same restrictions that are outlined in this section for those under 13 users.