In a follow-up question, Facebook then asked users for their thoughts on who should decide the rules regarding such content. Response options included Facebook on its own, Facebook with advice from external experts, external experts on their own or Facebook users. In neither question did the survey acknowledge a role for law enforcement or that in many places, such actions would be illegal.

Facebook has since stopped running the surveys and Guy Rosen, Facebook's VP of product, said they were "a mistake." Writing on Twitter, Rosen said, "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."

Though it appears that Facebook was pretty quick to remove the questions, there's no reason they should ever have been there in the first place. And it's mind-boggling to think that anyone would have considered them to be appropriate queries to begin with. In a statement to the Guardian, Facebook said, "We understand this survey refers to offensive content that is already prohibited on Facebook and that we have no intention of allowing so have 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."

Image: Facebook via Jonathan Haynes