Facebook survey asks users if it should allow child grooming, site admits “mistake”

FacebookFacebook has been forced to admit that it made in mistake in asking some users whether child grooming should be allowed on its social network.

Over the weekend, a select number of users were asked how they would handle “a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures” and whether they think a predator asking for such pictures should be allowed to do so. None of the answer options even mentioned the fact that the scenario is illegal and should be dealt with as such.

On the issue, Facebook’s vice president of product, Guy Rosen, tweeted: “We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies. But this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on FB. We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldnt have been part of this survey. That was a mistake.”

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson added: “We understand this survey refers to offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing so have stopped the survey.

“We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days; we have no intention of changing this and we regularly work with the police to ensure that anyone found acting in such a way is brought to justice.”

The survey has even come to the attention of British politicians, who have called out the social network on the survey.

“This is a stupid and irresponsible survey,” said Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. “Adult men asking 14-year-olds to send sexual images is not only against the law, it is completely wrong and an appalling abuse and exploitation of children. I cannot imagine that Facebook executives ever want it on their platform but they also should not send out surveys that suggest they might tolerate it or suggest to Facebook users that this might ever be acceptable.”