User blog comment:Rockor king/Fight away the coppa!/@comment-20644-20130219205235

Hi all. I’m Brandon, a community manager here at Wikia. This is not an appropriate discussion for Wikia. Discussions about people’s ages should be avoided. Not only that, but our Terms of Use are clear: if you are under 13, you cannot have an account on Wikia. This is non-negotiable.

As you all know, this is done to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It’s not users who need to comply with COPPA, it’s Wikia. We’re responsible for ensuring that no one under the age of 13 has their personal information collected by us. So, because our sign up process requires that information (personal information can include e-mail addresses, or even usernames if you want to get really technical), our Terms of Use state that you cannot have an account if you are under 13. If we let you have an account when you were under 13, you wouldn’t be in trouble&mdash;Wikia would. Wikia is an American company based in the state of California, so we are required to follow all relevant federal, state, and local laws. That includes COPPA.

Let me clarify a few things about how laws in the United States work, though, since there’s a lot of talk here about Barack Obama and how this is all his fault. First, COPPA was signed into law in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, ten years before Barack Obama was elected President. It became effective in 2000, so this law isn’t as a result of President Obama. It’s been in place for just about 13 years now. Given the economy, unemployment, the debt and deficit, the need for immigration reform, the push for gun control and climate change legislation, and various foreign affairs, I’m sure you can understand why bringing COPPA up hasn’t been a priority for the Obama Administration.

If you want this law changed, then you need to petition Congress. The President can propose laws, but he’s not a king. He can’t make all of the decisions himself. COPPA was created as an act of Congress, so its repeal or revision is up to Congress and can be signed or vetoed by the President of the United States (whoever that may be at the time). Before the President can do that, though, Congress needs to take up the issue, vote on it, and pass the legislation so it can be sent to the White House for approval or rejection.

Petitioning Congress is your right. If you want to petition Congress about this issue and you live in the United States, feel free to write to your Representative or your Senators expressing your opinion on this law and what, if anything, you feel should be done about it. If you don’t live in the United States, feel free to send a correspondence to your embassy in the United States and ask that they forward it to an appropriate member of Congress to read.

In the meantime, I’m closing off discussion on this blog. Please do not continue having conversations about this topic, because it is not appropriate for Wikia. Thanks.