Facebook ripped for poll question about child-sex photos
The social media giant apologized for making ‘a mistake’ in sending millions of users a survey about adults’ solicitation of sexual images from minors. Here’s how it handled the backlash.
Some mistakes are easily explained; this was not one of those mistakes.
Facebook sent a survey to millions of users asking them for feedback around what is known as “child grooming,” where adults ask children for sexual pictures online.
“In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebooks’ policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14 year old girl for sexual pictures,” one questions asks, with users given the option to respond with: “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.” There’s only one right answer to that question, seeing as the act is a crime and already a violation of Facebook’s policies. And yet, Facebook still made the baffling decision to crowdsource responses from users.
Facebook’s Guy Rosen tweeted that including the question was an error:
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