Facebook pedophile survey blasted

Social network drops questions amid shockwave

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is under fire for asking users whether pedophiles should be able to proposition underage girls for sexually explicit photographs on the social network.

The survey is the latest in a series of missteps by the Silicon Valley company, which has been criticized for allowing content that exploits children.

From violence on its Live streaming service to hate speech to divisive messages sent by Russian operatives trying to meddle in the U.S. presidential election, toxic content flowing through its platform has heightened scrutiny of Facebook.

Facebook scrapped the survey that posed questions about teens being groomed by older men after it was spotted by media outlets in the United Kingdom. It now says the survey could have been better “designed.”

The company routinely uses surveys to get feedback from more than 2 billion users.

Questions in Sunday’s survey shocked and angered users.

“In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures,” Facebook asked.

Sexual contact with minors online, part of a “grooming process” in which adults seek to gain trust and lower sexual inhibition, is often a precursor to sexual abuse.

The possible responses Facebook offered to the question ranged from “this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it” to “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.”

Another question asked who should decide whether an adult man can ask for sexual pictures on Facebook, with options ranging from “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” to “Facebook decides the rules on its own.”

Jonathan Haynes, digital editor at the Guardian newspaper, tweeted: “I’m like, er wait is making it secret the best Facebook can offer here? Not, y’know, calling the police?”

“That was a mistake,” Guy Rosen, a vice president of product at Facebook, responded.

“We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,” he wrote on Twitter. “But this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on (Facebook). We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn’t have been part of this survey.”

In a statement, Facebook said the survey referred to “offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing.”