Facebook Says Child Abuse Poll Was 'Mistake'
Facebook has received massive backlash for creating a poll asking if pedophiles should have the ability to ask underage girls for sexually explicit pictures through the social media platform.
On Sunday, Facebook asked a number of users for their thoughts on this. The first question in the survey asked users how they would respond if they were able to create Facebook's policies and found out that an adult was asking a 14-year-old girl for sexually explicit pictures.
The options for answers included the following: "This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it," "This content should be allowed on Facebook, but I don't want to see it," "This content should be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it," and "I have no preference on this topic."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The second question asked users who they thought should decide on the rules on this kind of situation. The options for answers ranged from Facebook deciding the rules, external experts advise Facebook, external experts decide for Facebook, to Facebook users decide the rules through votation.
As pointed out by the Guardian, neither survey question had the option to involve child protection services when a situation like that would occur.
"This is a stupid and irresponsible survey," Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said, told the Guardian. "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."
Meanwhile, Guy Rosen, a vice president of product at Facebook, addressed the issue through posting an apology on Twitter in response to Jonathan Haynes.
"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 shouldn't have been part of this survey. That was a mistake," Rosen wrote.
Facebook has since taken down the survey. The company said in a statement retrieved by USA Today that they have always prohibited pedophilic acts in their platform.
