Facebook asks if it should let paedophiles use it to groom children

The site has admitted the survey was a 'mistake'

(Reuters)

Facebook has been asking whether paedophiles should be allowed to use it to groom children.

Numerous Facebook users are seeing a survey that asks what they site should do if an adult man "asks a 14 year old girl for sexual pictures". The survey claimed the question was being asked to help decide whether such behaviour "should or should not be allowed on Facebook".

The survey went on to give a number of options, asking whether Facebook should ban such behaviour on its own or if it should contact "external experts". Only one of the four options allowed users to say definitively that sexual pictures of children should be banned on the site.

The site has since admitted that the survey was a "mistake" and that using the site to groom children is never allowed.

"We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies," Guy Rosen, its head of product, wrote on Twitter. "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."

Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that the survey is "stupid and irresponsible" for suggesting that the question of whether child grooming is banned is one that is up for debate.

"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,"OK Ms Cooper said.