Facebook Apparently Doesn't Believe Anyone Over 100 Could Use The Service, 108 Year Old Has To Lie

from the for-the-encouragement-of-lying dept

There are plenty of stories about children under the age of 13 having to lie (often with the assistance of their parents) to get on Facebook. This is due to the ridiculous COPPA law that the FTC supports strongly, despite it doing close to nothing to actually "protect children." But what's the excuse for people lying at the other end of the scale? A 104 years old woman is forced to be perpetually 99 years old because Facebook apparently refuses ages higher than that. It makes you wonder if they just never thought someone with three digits in their age would use the service and only set up the database to handle two digits. Oddly, rather than defaulting down to 99 years old when Marguerite Joseph tried to enter her birth year of 1908, the system automatically took 20 years off her life and said she was born in 1928. Either way, just as parents are helping children lie about their age at the youth end of the spectrum, in this case, it's Marguerite's granddaughter who's the accomplice here, since Marguerite is legally blind, but still likes to keep in touch with people via Facebook.