An estimated 7.5 million kids under age 13 are already on Facebook, despite a ban that prevents children that young from signing up for social networking sites without a parent's consent. But why keep the kids off Facebook, asked the site's founder Mark Zuckerberg? He's taking a bit of heat for suggesting that young children shouldn't be barred from social networking, but what do you think?

Zuckerberg says overturning the ban " will be a fight we take on at some point."  " My philosophy is that for education, you need to start at a really, really young age," the explained to CNN. Of course, plenty of parents are uncomfortable with giving their little ones an online presence, especially because the internet is a notorious haven for sex predators who, if Lifetime movies are to be believed, find their victims by chatting them on MySpace or something. Then again, social networking is the way of the future - without an online presence in today's world, you might as well not exist.

So what's the answer? With better privacy controls, a policy that lets kids use a nickname rather than their real names and some additional supervision, social networking for the tween crowd could soon be a (safe) reality.