Facebook Criticized for Grooming Survey

As Facebook is very much in our life, therefore sometimes it has to face criticism from its followers, critics and market leaders. This time it is criticized for an irresponsible survey on child grooming. Facebook sent some of its users an eccentric survey asking its users whether they would like child grooming to be allowed on the social network, which was followed by rains of criticism all across the world.

In the survey, the social network site asked thousand of its users what the rules should be in the case of a “private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for pictures”. The multiple choice answers for the hypothetical scenario included allowing or stopping the content but did not include contacting the police.

In a survey distributed on the social networking site on 5th March 2018, Facebook asked whether the network, external experts or users, should decide the rules on the hypothetical private message to the girl. It then asked users how they thought its policy regarding child grooming should be developed. The options also included allowing the content and “I would not mind seeing it”, allowing the content “but I don’t want to see it”, and stopping the content.

Second question asked by Facebook to its user in the survey is whom they thought, should decide the rules regarding whether an adult man could ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures. “Facebook decides the rules on its own” and “Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook” were both options.

According to critics by raising such questions, Facebook ran the risk of appearing to condone such activity, which is also a criminal offence.

Yvette Cooper, Chairwoman of the home affairs select committee said, “This is a stupid and irresponsible survey. An adult men seeking from a 14-year-old girl to send sexual images is not just against the law, but also is completely wrong and an appalling abuse and exploitation of children. I have never imagined that Facebook would ever utilize their platform for such surveys and send out questionnaire that suggest they might tolerate it and indicate its users might accept this survey.”

For some time now Social networking sites including Facebook has been under pressure to control the criminal activities who use the sites to groom and share indecent images of children.

Another member of Home Affair Select Committee, Tim Loughton is of the view that, “this is grooming, plain and simple, and the only solution is to ring the police and apprehend the culprit. Why Facebook is appearing to look into ways to take up the laws in its hand to prove its liberal attitude, but the options in the survey clearly indicates that the under age children are vulnerable to predators?”

A Facebook spokeswoman said that it had stopped the survey, “We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days; we have no intention of changing this and we regularly work with the police to ensure that anyone found acting in such a way is brought to justice.” She added that the company sometimes asked for feedback about the type of content users would find most concerning.