Facebook faces backlash after posting survey asking users “if pedophile is ok”
Sparking outrage on the survey asking users for their opinion on allowing paedophiles to solicit sexual pictures from children on the platform, the social media giant, Facebook, is facing a major backlash on the internet.
The survey that Facebook put on included the questions like violent extremism, it also 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.”
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.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 4, 2018
Defending survey by the social media giant, Rosen said that survey wasn’t meant to decide Facebook’s stance on paedophile. He says, “We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies.” He further added, “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 survey also raised questions to imagine users “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 paedophiles solicit minors on Facebook is up for debate.