There are many reasons as to why a person may lie about their age upon signing up for Facebook (NASDAQ:FB): it could be that they’re too young to join the social network or a middle-aged person wants to appear younger than what they really are.
One woman is making headlines for lying about her age because the website wouldn’t let her provide her real year of birth.
Anna Stoehr, 114, was recently profiled by NBC’s local Minnesota news station KARE11 for its “Boyd Huppert’s Land of 10,000 Stories.” Stoehr, who is the oldest living person in Minnesota, tried to create an account on Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, but when she tried to the website wouldn’t permit her.
It turns out that she was born in 1900, but the website’s limit is 1905. Therefore, Stoehr fibbed about her age and her connections were then notified that she turned 99 on Sunday.
The 114-year-old recently became friends with Verizon sales representative Joseph Ramireza, who was so impressed with her ability to learn quickly about her tech-savvy skills that he drove two hours to her nursing home to teach her about Google, video chat and Facebook.
With the assistance of Ramireza, Stoehr wrote a letter on her typewriter to the social network juggernaut. It hasn’t been reported if Facebook has responded to Stoehr and the company has yet to respond to media requests for comment on the matter.
This isn’t the first time that a centenarian has been denied access to Facebook because of their age. According to PC Magazine, a 104-year-old woman in Feb. 2013 petitioned Facebook to change its sign-up policy because she was also forced to lie about her age and depict herself as 99 years of age.
Since Stoehr is the seventh oldest person in the U.S. and the story is gaining steam, Facebook will likely respond to her requests soon.
