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BY ERIYOMA EWHAREKUKO

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A 12-year-old child posts sexually explicit photos of herself on the Internet. So who gets the blame? The Internet or the parents? That’s the question behind a lawsuit hitting social media giant Facebook.

The BBC has more.

“A Northern Ireland father is suing Facebook over suggestive photos posted of his 12-year-old daughter on the social networking site. The site requires members to be over the age of 13, although it does not use any checks. The father's solicitor, Hilary Carmichael, said the company was unable to uphold its own policy.”

The father’s lawyer says the photos were explicit. The girl was made-up and did not appear to be 12-years old. In addition to posting sexually explicit material, she gave personal details including the area where she lives and the school she is currently attending.

According to ZDNet...

“She reportedly received inappropriate text messages from men asking her to post sexual messages and photos on Facebook.”

NBC’s Digital Life reports the girl has had some troubling behaviour in the past and, obviously, still seems to be quite troubled.

“The girl, who reportedly suffers from emotional problems, was in the custody of Northern Health and Social Care Trust when she posted the offending images. Dad's suing that agency, too.”

But according to CNN, all that doesn’t add up to laying the blame on Facebook’s doorstep-- though the company should probably do the right thing.

“Bottom line is, Facebook legally doesn't have to monitor in this way. He is asking -- in terms of this lawsuit -- Facebook to take it down, to take her page down. And I think Facebook should do that and be a good corporate citizen, because again she is under the age of a Facebook poster.”

But Fox News argues Facebook can’t shirk all the responsibility.

“Come on where’s your heart in all of this? It takes a village to raise a child. The point is that lets frame the issue for one minute Greg. All this father’s asking Facebook to is exercise this standard of care that its policies say that it needs to exercises. How, I mean what would it take for Facebook to simply enforce it.”

Finally, a blogger for AfterDawn says, why is age 13 the cutoff anyway?

“My own personal view is that Facebook isn’t suitable for under-18s, but the company isn’t even able to uphold its own policy of keeping under-13s out. An age check, like asking for a passport number would be a simple measure for Facebook to implement.”

Reports say when the girl’s father found out about the account, he shut it down-- but she kept opening new ones. 

Transcript by Newsy.