{"id":96047,"date":"2018-03-07T06:50:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T10:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=96047"},"modified":"2018-03-07T07:02:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T11:02:57","slug":"pedogate-yes-facebook-actually-did-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=96047","title":{"rendered":"<b>PEDOGATE<\/b>: Yes, Facebook actually did this!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><div style=\"width: 544px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand-img-horiz\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/f5f9bacb1c12c0b5332ef4584cd12f7da1ba10d1\/c=0-0-1021-767&amp;r=x404&amp;c=534x401\/local\/-\/media\/2016\/01\/29\/USATODAY\/USATODAY\/635896926057349469-F.JPG\" alt=\"635896926057349469-F.JPG\" width=\"534\" height=\"401\" data-mycapture-src=\"http:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/media\/2016\/01\/29\/USATODAY\/USATODAY\/635896926057349469-F.JPG\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"http:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/50117b4bfe181f32492ec4d414638d7c08e560e6\/r=500x400\/local\/-\/media\/2016\/01\/29\/USATODAY\/USATODAY\/635896926057349469-F.JPG\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo: Daniel Reinhardt, EPA)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<h1>Facebook asked users if pedophiles should be able to ask kids for &#8216;sexual pictures&#8217;<\/h1>\n<p>Jessica Guynn<br \/>\nUSA Today<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"USATODAY- Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/uw-media.usatoday.com\/video\/embed\/111117396?placement=embed\" width=\"540\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-1 p-text\">SAN FRANCISCO \u2014\u00a0Facebook is under fire for asking users whether pedophiles should be able to proposition underage girls for sexually explicit photographs on the giant social network.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-2 p-text\">The survey is the latest in a series of missteps by the Silicon Valley company, which has been criticized for allowing content that exploits children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">From violence on its Live streaming service to hate speech\u00a0to divisive messages sent by Russian operatives trying to\u00a0to meddle in the U.S. presidential election, toxic content flowing through its platform has heightened scrutiny of Facebook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Facebook scrapped the survey that posed questions about teens being groomed by older men after\u00a0it was spotted by media outlets in the United Kingdom. It now says the survey could have been better &#8220;designed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The company routinely uses surveys\u00a0to get feedback from the social network&#8217;s more than 2 billion users. More recently, Facebook has been relying on user surveys to take their pulse on everything from the &#8220;fake news&#8221; epidemic to\u00a0whether Facebook makes them happy as\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/news\/2018\/02\/13\/breaking-up-facebook-users-confess-theyre-spending-less-time\/319672002\/\">people have stopped spending as much time there<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">But the two questions in Sunday&#8217;s\u00a0survey\u00a0shocked and angered Facebook users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook\u2019s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures,&#8221; Facebook asked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Sexual contact with minors online, part of a &#8220;grooming process&#8221; in which adults seek to gain trust and lower inhibition, is often a precursor to sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The possible responses Facebook offered to the question ranged from &#8220;this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it&#8221;\u00a0to &#8220;this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Another question asked who should decide whether an adult man can\u00a0ask for sexual pictures on Facebook, with options ranging from &#8220;Facebook users decide the rules by voting and tell Facebook&#8221;\u00a0to &#8220;Facebook decides the rules on its own.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Jonathan Haynes, digital editor at the\u00a0<em>Guardian newspaper<\/em>, tweeted: \u201cI\u2019m like, er wait is\u00a0making it secret the best Facebook can offer here? Not, y\u2019know, calling the police?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;That was a mistake,&#8221;\u00a0Guy Rosen, a vice president of product at Facebook, responded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies,\u201d he\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/guyro\/status\/970382612714856448\">wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cBut this kind of activity is and will always be completely unacceptable on (Facebook). We regularly work with authorities if identified. It shouldn&#8217;t have been part of this survey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;It is hard to believe that Facebook could be so utterly tone-deaf when it comes to this issue,&#8221; said\u00a0Diana Graber,\u00a0founder of Cyber Civics\u00a0and CyberWise\u00a0which\u00a0teach digital literacy to kids and parents.\u00a0&#8220;The fact that Facebook would even pose this question theoretically is disgusting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">In a statement, Facebook said the survey referred to &#8220;offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Stacey Steinberg, a law professor at the University of Florida and author of\u00a0<em>Sharenting: Children\u2019s Privacy in the Age of Social Media<\/em>,\u00a0says the Facebook survey sent\u00a0a &#8220;terrible message&#8221;\u00a0and, worse yet, normalizes predatory behavior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Facebook shouldn&#8217;t be asking users whether\u00a0such behavior is acceptable, it should be educating families on the risks posed by online predators, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;Working with law enforcement is an important first step, but Facebook can do even more. Instead of asking questions such as the ones posed in this survey, Facebook can use its reach to help families and victims,&#8221; Steinberg said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Digital citizenship expert and technology ethicist David Ryan Polgar chalks up the flap over the survey\u00a0to &#8220;massive growing pains&#8221; as Facebook wrestles with its social responsibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;The misstep with the survey seems to be a situation of good intentions that did not fully appreciate the rightful anger and frustration the general public feels towards the current online environment,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">International attention to how pedophiles use\u00a0social media to target and prey on children has grown in recent years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">An\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/betanews.com\/2016\/02\/12\/pedophiles-are-reportedly-using-facebook-to-share-images-of-children\/\">investigation by the BBC<\/a>\u00a0in 2016 uncovered numerous private Facebook groups by and for men with a sexual interest in children to share images, with one run by a convicted pedophile. Photos of children taken from their parents&#8217; Facebook accounts have also been found on pedophile sites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Facebook faced criticism\u00a0again in 2017 when the BBC\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-39187929\">flagged dozens of images and pages<\/a>\u00a0containing child pornography.\u00a0Of the 100 reported images,18 were removed by Facebook, according to the BBC.\u00a0At the time, the BBC said Facebook asked to be sent\u00a0examples of the images and then reported the broadcaster to the child exploitation unit of Britain\u2019s National Crime Agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Verified\u00a0child sex abuse images are sent\u00a0to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other organizations that work with law enforcement to find offenders. Facebook also\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/notes\/facebook-safety\/meet-the-safety-team\/248332788520844\/\">combats the spread<\/a>\u00a0of child pornography with technology that detects and blocks content from being uploaded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;We have prohibited child grooming on Facebook since our earliest days,&#8221; the company said. &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/2018\/03\/05\/facebook-asked-users-if-pedophiles-should-able-ask-kids-sexual-pictures\/395535002\/\">http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/2018\/03\/05\/facebook-asked-users-if-pedophiles-should-able-ask-kids-sexual-pictures\/395535002\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}