Facebook asks: Should we allow pedophiles to prey on underage girls for sex pics?

Facebook admitted Monday that asking users whether the platform should allow pedophiles to proposition 14-year-old girls for sexually explicit images was “a mistake.”

The social network published the U.K. survey Sunday, posing two questions about underage teens being groomed by older men, part of the organization’s ongoing attempts to improve its battered reputation.

The first question asked:

“There are a wide range of topics and behaviors that appear on Facebook. 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.”

Users were given the following choices, none of which included reporting the illegal act to the police.

The second question asked who should set the rules to deal with such an incident. Answers included:

• Facebook decides the rules on its own
• Facebook decides the rules with advice from external experts
• External experts decide the rules and tell Facebook
• Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tells Facebook
• I have no preference

“This is a stupid and irresponsible survey,” Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the home affairs select committee, told the Times Monday in response. “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.”

Facebook said the survey questions were a “mistake” and should never have been run. Guy Rosen, a vice president of product, tweeted: “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.”

Facebook said it has discontinued the survey.

The company has come under significant pressure from lawmakers across the globe to clean up its platform, particularly in the wake of the Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 U.S. election. It is also trying to deal with other questionable content, such as death threats, hate speech and extremism.

Cover image: In this photo illustration, the app of Facebook is displayed on a smartphone on February 12, 2018 in Berlin. (Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)