The interactive survey was sent to a selection of Facebook users.
Facebook has asked several thousand users whether or not it should allow child grooming to take place on the social network.
The astonishing survey uses multiple choice answers to discuss whether or not it’s acceptable for an adult man to ask a 14-year old girl for sexual pictures.
One of the multiple choice answers included:
“This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.”
And asked this … and I’m like, er wait it making it secret the best Facebook can offer here? Not, y’know, calling the police? pic.twitter.com/t2UZuKalfk
— Jonathan Haynes (@JonathanHaynes) March 4, 2018
Another question in the survey asked this:
“When thinking about the rules for deciding whether a private message in which an adult man asks a 14 year old girl for sexual pictures should or should not be allowed on Facebook, ideally who do you think should be deciding the rules?”
Some of the answers included Facebook deciding rules on its own, external experts deciding the rules and users themselves deciding the rules and telling Facebook.
Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the home affairs select committee told the Times the survey was “stupid and irresponsible”.
Facebook may be trying to limit predatory behaviour on its platform, but critics have pointed out that by raising it in a hypothetical situation, the tech giant gives the appearance of condoning it.
In January, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced there would be sweeping changes to the site to try and make the user experience more “meaningful”.
It comes as Facebook faces mounting criticism for its role in serious social and political problems such as cyber-bullying and fake news.
In response, Zuckerberg said he wants using Facebook to be good for users’ “well-being”.
He wrote: “Since there’s more public content than posts from your friends and family, the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do – help us connect with each other.”
