Facebook Under Fire For Blasting Out ‘Bizarre’ And ‘Irresponsible’ Survey Questions

Facebook continues to shamelessly screw over conservative pages, so I don’t feel a shred of sympathy for the social media giant. It deserves all the backlash coming its way and THEN some.

Facebook is currently under fire for blasting out “bizarre” and “irresponsible” survey questions. Basically, the social media giant asked users to pretend they were in charge of Facebook’s policies and asked them how THEY would handle weeding out certain questionable users. And by certain questionable users, I mean straight up pedophiles.

Via The Guardian:

On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. “There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook,” one question began. “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.”

The options available to respondents 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”.

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. Options available included “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” and “Facebook decides the rules on its own”.

You can see a screenshot of the survey questions here.

By the way, Facebook didn’t provide any options for REPORTING THE PERV TO LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, condemned the survey. “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.”

Exactly. And isn’t that the message Facebook’s sending? That it might possibly tolerate that kind of behavior? I’m truly appalled. What was Facebook THINKING?

Facebook’s vice president of product, Guy Rosen, said the surveys were “a mistake”.

“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.”

At least Facebook admitted it this was the dumbest idea in the history of dumbest ideas.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson added: “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.”

Some days I wonder if any humans actually work at Facebook: Company sent a survey to some users asking if it would be OK for a man to ask a 14-yr-old girl for sexual pictures. Co says it was a "mistake" https://t.co/Y1jLcApXPZ

— Scott Thurm (@ScottThurm) March 5, 2018

Are Facebook condoning or even promoting paedophilia?

At the weekend they pushed out a survey that asked whether an adult man asking for a 14 year old girl to send sexual pictures should be allowed and whether users would want to see it.

In what world is this right?#Facebook pic.twitter.com/s7pGcG2ZkG

— Miss Jo (@HaramHussy) March 5, 2018

Facebook has been criticised over a survey in which it asked whether child grooming should be allowed on its site https://t.co/CZ3RTXV63v

— The Australian (@australian) March 5, 2018

It is NOT acceptable @facebook gets to brush this off with a “whoops, we accidentally asked if it’s ok for old dudes to ask 14 year olds for sexual pictures in an official FB survey! Our bad!” FB should at min publish the results of that survey.
Zuck, get your shit together. https://t.co/NvhNEiYKdN

— Jessica Kia (@JessicaKia) March 5, 2018

Totally messed up, Facebook. Do better.

h/t The Guardian