Facebook Asks Users: Should We Allow Men To Ask Children For Sexual Images? (theguardian.com)

Alex Hern, writing for The Guardian: Facebook has admitted it was a "mistake" to ask users whether paedophiles requesting sexual pictures from children should be allowed on its website. 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."

Comments

Re:It's a trap!

[Dread_ed]

Incoming rant:

Until someone is able to negotiate and establish the boundaries of consent before sexual congress occurs, and is enthusiastic in maintaining those boundaries for all partners, they are mentally and socially unprepared for sex. I think 18 represents an age where a young person is both able to endure the devastating effects of a poorly informed and structured sexual life, and also is able to sign contracts for loans and take financial responsibility for a child if one were to occur. Not that either of these outcomes are optimal, it's just the most convenient age to put the responsibility and consequences strictly on the individual. Before that it is the parent's responsibility. Sadly many children do not achieve sexual escape velocity by that age and repeat the same mistakes, or interrelated aftereffects of their parent's mistakes, until they either learn better (negative reinforcement) or transform themselves.

You cannot maintain a child's innocence though ignorance. Teach the basics, like consent discussion, as early as possible. Of course this means you need to be speaking to someone with near encyclopedic knowledge of sexual anatomy, practices, and sexual health. These are the precursors to the basics of sex education. If your child does not know all about these things from you, backed up by authoritative and 100% factual knowledge, and they are of the age where this is relevant to their experience of life, you are failing your child as their parent and opening the door for them to experience abuse.

In short, if you are not having frank, open, structured, and cogent discussions about human sexuality with your children you are failing them. You will be the reason they get an STD, get raped, or cause a pregnancy. You will be the reason they are confused, shamed, and conflicted. You will be the reason they cannot express themselves sexually, why they are passive and submissive rather than self assured (being passive and submissive AND self assured is a very different thing), and you will open them up to manipulation and subversion.

Be advised, due to many social influences your child will receive a full sex education by the age of 7-9 years old, whether you want them to or not. If you do not provide the proper information, someone else will provide improper information. First in last out rules apply, so be prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time correcting assumptions based on incorrect information that gets there first. Delay is your enemy. Your conflicted thoughts are also dangerous. Your squeamishness and inability to act and deal with the reality of your child's sexual health can have lifelong consequences that are not only physical but emotional and psychological as well.

For your child's sake, and for the sake of the rest of us who have to live in a world with your child, do your goddamned job as a parent. Thanks! /rant