“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. “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. 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," said company's VP for product management, Guy Rosen, said in a tweet. "We regularly work with authorities if identified. 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. 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.
Facebook apologizes after including a question in a user survey on the acceptability of soliciting sexual pictures from minors on its platform.