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

How did this happen?

[H3lldr0p]

Seriously. How? How did anyone at any level of the company think this was a good idea for long enough that it made it out into public view?

Talk about being asleep at the wheel. How many in management are now going to claim ignorance when confronted with this?

But it is ok for women.

[lucaiaco]

The implicature is that if an adult woman asks for an explicit picture of a boy or a girl it is OK.

Re:It's a trap!

[dbialac]

And it's sexist. There are plenty of female pedophiles.

Re:No Facebook

[TheRaven64]

In this case, it actually is. If someone posts something in a public place saying 'hey, any underage girls / boys want to send me naked pictures?' then it's pretty easy to take down the post. But presumably pedophiles are not doing that, they're sending direct messages. Is it therefore acceptable for Facebook to inspect every direct message (i.e. no end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp anymore) and block anything illegal? Should they just disable end-to-end encryption for under-18s and block illegal content? Can they even legally do that, without running afoul of various minor-protection laws in different jurisdictions? Should they then warn you that you're talking to an under-18 (and would this help pedophiles identify targets)?

Re:It's a trap!

[sexconker]

Yes really.