Facebook has apologized for a survey that asked users for their opinion on allowing pedophiles to solicit sexual pictures from children on the platform. The Guardian reported on a small survey designed to gauge users’ opinions on Facebook policy. Alongside questions about topics like violent extremism, it asked how users would handle “a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.” One possible answer was “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.” Facebook VP of product Guy Rosen tweeted an apology for the question, saying it “shouldn’t have been part of this survey.”

Rosen said this survey wasn’t meant to decide Facebook’s stance on pedophilia. “We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,” he said. “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.” The Guardian published another statement from Facebook, which said that “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.”

The survey question asked users to imagine “an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies,” then state whether they’d be okay with seeing that content, whether they would allow it but wouldn’t want to see it, or whether they would ban it from the platform. In a follow-up question, Facebook asked whether Facebook, users, or outside experts should be in charge of making these calls. It seems pretty clear that Facebook was simply looking for an example of extremely offensive content, but the survey still implies that letting pedophiles solicit minors on Facebook is up for debate.</s>Facebook made a rather questionable decision this weekend. For some reason, it asked whether users approved of the sending pedophilic material on the platform.

According to The Guardian, Facebook issued the survey to a select group of users on Sunday.

"How would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14 year old girl for sexual pictures," the question asked. Respondents were given four answers, including: "This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it."

However, the survey doesn't appear to point out that asking for sexual pictures from minors is illegal. Answers to the two survey question also fail to mention contacting law enforcement or child protective services as options, The Guardian said.

"I mean, this is not the kind of topic you should be determining policy on by surveying your readers. Facebook so out of touch with the real world," tweeted Jonathan Haynes, digital editor for The Guardian.

In response, Facebook called the survey a mistake. "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," said company's VP for product management, Guy Rosen, said in a tweet.

"We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn't have been part of this survey. That was a mistake," he added.

It isn't clear how many users were exposed to the survey or in what regions. Facebook simply told PCMag: "We sometimes ask for feedback from people about our community standards and the types of content they would find most concerning on Facebook."

According to The Guardian, the same survey also asked similar questions about content that glorifies extremism, and whether Facebook's polices were developed in a fair, transparent manner.</s>Facebook fields criticism as survey question around child grooming causes concern.

On Sunday (4 March), Facebook ran a survey for a selection of users asking questions about how grooming of young people should be handled on its platform.

The questions were designed to gauge user opinions about Facebook’s policies around topics such as grooming and extremist content.

The company asked how users would handle a “private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures”. An answer option read: “This content should be allowed on Facebook and I would not mind seeing it.”

According to The Guardian, a second question asked who should make the rules in terms of whether or not the adult man in question should be permitted to ask for explicit pictures of minors on the platform in the first place. Options here included allowing Facebook users to decide and inform the company, or Facebook deciding the rules “on its own”.

Neither question allowed users to choose an option involving child protection or law enforcement, and the harshest option involved turning to Facebook itself for a verdict on such a situation.

Vice-president of product for Facebook, Guy Rosen, tweeted an apology about the question, saying it should not have been an element of the wider survey.

He maintained that the question was not a method of deciding Facebook’s stance on issues such as paedophilia. He said: “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.”

In a statement, the social media giant was firm in its stance against all forms of abuse: “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 wording of the survey raised concerns among many users and, although it’s evident that the company was searching for user opinions and feedback around controversial issues, the inclusion of certain questions was a poor decision.

According to the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), 63pc of child grooming incidents take place on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

The BBC reported that the NSPCC wants social media companies to tackle the issue of child grooming with more urgency and technological tools, such as using machine learning to identify and flag grooming behaviour.</s>All companies make mistakes, of course. But some mistakes are so mystifying, they force us to ask who signed off on them. Today’s case in point: Facebook reportedly gave users a survey this weekend with some very inappropriate questions, including one that asked about the appropriateness of soliciting sexual images from minors.

“There are a wide range of topics and behaviors that appear on Facebook,” the question asked. “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.”

Possible answers to this multiple-choice question include “this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it,” as well as, “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.”

A follow-up question asked who should be deciding the rules on this sort of behavior, somehow omitting the fact that asking children for sexual photos is illegal.

A VP of product at Facebook tweeted that the survey question was a mistake, adding that the company runs surveys “to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies.”

A Facebook spokesperson told the Guardian, “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.”

That still leaves the question: Who wrote this question to begin with?CGW</s>Facebook's ongoing effort to solicit user feedback reached a bizarre low over the weekend. As reported by The Guardian, the social network included a question in a survey that allowed responders to indicate that FB should allow illegal, sexualized content from teenagers on the platform.

A screengrab clarified the exact phrasing of two questions, and these appear to combine stock question templates with a controversial phrase: "a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures." The first asked how users thought Facebook should respond to such a scenario, and it included positive-sounding answers such as, "this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it."

The second question asked "who should be deciding the rules" on that kind of content appearing on Facebook, and its answers included, "Facebook decides the rules on its own," "external experts decide the rules and tell Facebook," and "users decide the rules by voting and telling Facebook."

As Guardian reporter Alex Hern pointed out, no question in the survey included an option of contacting or referring a case to law enforcement. The survey was received by Guardian editor Jonathan Haynes, and UK law forbids the solicitation of nude or sexualized images from "a child," which is anyone under the age of 18.

Facebook's survey push on this angle of online communication is curious for two reasons. First, the UK law in question was notoriously held up both in being signed into the public record and enforced. Second, Facebook introduced a new Messenger Kids app for iOS users only in December, which is designed to let users ages 13 and younger communicate on the platform exclusively with friends and peers who parents expressly approve of.

Additional questions in the Sunday survey, according to The Guardian, asked users' thoughts on "glorifying extremism" and on the service's "transparency" and understanding of "cultural norms" in developing policies.

Facebook vice president of product Guy Rosen tweeted a response about the survey on Sunday, telling 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."

The company offered an additional statement: "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."</s>Facebook has apologized for a recent user survey which asked if pedophiles should be allowed to request sexual images from children on the social media platform.

The Guardian reports that Facebook has apologized for a recent user survey which asked users to outline how they believed the company should deal with pedophiles grooming children on the platform. One question stated, “There are a wide range of topics and behaviors that appear on Facebook.” It continued, “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.”

Users could select options such as. “This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it,” or “This content should be allowed on Facebook, but I don’t want to see it,” or “This content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be to see it” and finally, “I have no preference on this topic.”

Another question asked whether an adult man should be allowed to ask for sexual pictures of an underage child on Facebook, the options ranged from “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” and “Facebook decides the rules on its own.”

Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the UK criticised Facebook for the survey saying, “This is a stupid and irresponsible survey,” she said. “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.”

The social media giant’s VP of product Guy Rosen stated that the survey was “a mistake,” and continued to say “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.”

A company spokesperson commented on the survey saying, “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.”</s>Way to essentially ask users if they’re cool with paedophilia, Zuck. Picture: Justin sullivan

Way to essentially ask users if they’re cool with paedophilia, Zuck. Picture: Justin sullivan

WHAT on Earth was Facebook thinking?

The social media giant has been blasted for appearing to condone paedophilia by including a strange question in a survey it asked a select group of users to complete.

The company says the questions were designed to gain insight into how users think Facebook's policy is generated, particularly around extreme and illegal content. But the execution left a lot to be desired.

The question that has got everyone so upset asked users their opinion on how Facebook should ideally handle a case in which a male adult solicits sexual pictures from an underage girl on the website.

"In thinking of 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," the survey asked.

The possible responses to that question were:
• 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 not be allowed on Facebook and no one should be able to see it.
• I have no preference on this topic.

After the question was posted to social media it prompted a swift backlash, and Facebook pulled the survey.

A separate question used the same scenario and asked who should make the decisions about whether such content should be permitted on the site. Among the possible answers were "External experts decide the rules and tell Facebook" and "Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook".

What seemed to upset the public was the fact that the responses provided for both questions did not give users the chance to suggest that law enforcement or child protection services should be involved in the hypothetical situation.

On Twitter, Facebook's VP of product management, Guy Rosen, said the company regularly works with law enforcement agencies in such situations.

"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," he wrote. "We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn't have been part of this survey. That was a mistake."

In an official statement, Facebook reiterated that it did not intend to change its position on content that pertains to pornography or paedophilia.

"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," the company said in a statement emailed to CNBC.

"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 statement said.</s>Facebook apologized on Monday for a survey it sent to some users a day earlier asking if it was acceptable for an adult man to ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures on its service.

The survey asked users to indicate what would be appropriate “in an ideal world” if they were the ones to set Facebook’s policies. Options ranged from “this content should not be allowed, and no one should be able to see it” to “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it,” according to .

In a follow-up question, Facebook asked who should set rules for this type of behavior including by user through votes or exclusively by Facebook. At no point did it suggest law enforcement or child protective services should be part of the equation.

In an exchange on Twitter about the issue, Facebook vice president of product Guy Rosen said: “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.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by .

A Facebook representative told that it has prohibited such pictures from being shared on the platform since its earliest days and that it it has no intention of changing that policy. The representative also said it works regularly with police when such incidents occur to bring offenders to justice.</s>Facebook has been criticised after running a survey which asked users if the company should decide whether adult men could use the site to solicit sexual pictures from children.

The survey was shown to thousands of the social media platform's users on Sunday morning, and asked them how they thought its policy regarding child grooming should be developed.

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

The company offered the survey takers four options, only one of which let them say that the content should not be allowed on Facebook.

A second question asked the surveyed Facebook users whom they thought should decide the rules regarding whether an adult man could ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.

"Facebook decides the rules on its own" and "Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook" were both options.

The survey is reminiscent of a similarly distasteful question posed by Google last November, when the company took down a survey which showed people pictures of four young children and asked them to choose which one they liked best.

Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, described the survey as "stupid and irresponsible".

She told The Times: "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," Ms Cooper said.

A spokesperson for Facebook told Sky News: "We sometimes ask for feedback from people about our community standards and the types of content they would find most concerning on Facebook.

"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."</s>Facebook has admitted that a survey asking users whether it should allow an adult man to ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures was a "mistake"

Facebook has admitted that a survey asking users whether it should allow an adult man to ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures was a "mistake". The social network ran a survey for some users on Sunday asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour, the Guardian reported on Monday. The questions appeared on some users' home feeds.

"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," posed one of the survey questions. The responses available to users included: "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 not be allowed on Facebook and no one should be able to see it" and "I have no preference on this topic".

A second question asked who should decide the rules around whether or not the adult man should be allowed to ask for such pictures on Facebook. Responses available included "Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook" and "Facebook decides the rules on its own". In neither survey question did Facebook allow users to indicate that law enforcement or child protection should be involved in the situation, the Guardian report said.

Facebook's Vice President of Product, Guy Rosen, admitted the surveys was "a mistake". "We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies," Rosen was quoted as saying. "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. That was a mistake," he said.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Facebook apologizes after including a question in a user survey on the acceptability of soliciting sexual pictures from minors on its platform.