Facebook apologizes for search suggestions of child pornography videos
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A large logo is seen at Facebook's London headquarters. (Reuters)
Facebook was forced to apologize after it suggested weird and vulgar searches to users in the U.K.
The social media company’s suggestions, which are supposedly the result of popular search terms as determined by an algorithm, started to suggest unpleasant results to users who typed in "video of."
A number of users posted on Twitter examples that included suggestions of child pornography and similar materials.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In a statement to The Guardian, the tech giant said it was investigating the incident: “As soon as we became aware of these offensive predictions we removed them. Facebook search predictions are representative of what people may be searching for on Facebook and are not necessarily reflective of actual content on the platform.”
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The company went on to state that it does not permit sexually explicit imagery on the platform.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Last week, Facebook admitted that it was a “mistake” to ask users in a survey whether pedophiles requesting sexual pictures from children should be allowed on its platform.
The brouhaha adds to a long and growing list of woes for Facebook, including that it permitted a firm employed by the Trump campaign to harvest and exploit information from 50 million users of the social network.