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Facebook Says It is Sorry For Suggesting Child Sex Videos in Search (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the oh-facebook dept.

Facebook issued an apology on Friday after offensive terms appeared in the social network's search predictions late Thursday. From a report: When users typed "videos of" into the search bar, Facebook prompted them to search phrases including "videos of sexuals," "videos of girl sucking dick under water" and, perhaps most disturbingly, "video of little girl giving oral." Shocked users reported the problem on Twitter, posting screenshots of the search terms, which also included multiple suggestions relating to the school shooting in Florida last month. The social network appeared to have fixed the problem by Friday morning.

21 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. to be really sorry needs to cover all leagle costs by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    to be really sorry needs to cover all legal costs even an 3M dream team

  2. Now that you mention it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I would like to see a video of girls sucking dick under water. Thanks for suggesting it, FB. You know me well.

  3. Even worse than the FB faux pas... by PeterGM · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... is the fact that those search suggestions are likely the result of them being popular searches. It's a sick world, really.

    --
    There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
    1. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Or if they are making the algorithms a little too smart those searches are done by people which correlate well with his data.

    2. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ... is the fact that those search suggestions are likely the result of them being popular searches. It's a sick world, really.

      Maybe, maybe not. I've noticed that Google likes to try chaining searches, like if you search for "redheads" and then "girls with glasses" it'll show you far more redheads with glasses even though that's not what you searched for right now. Which means that if you're mixing "serious" and "not so serious" searches, different people using the same family computer etc. you're going to end up with a lot of weird shit.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is exactly why Google is becoming more and more useless, it tries to guess what I want rather than giving me what I want.

      I switched to DuckDuckGo and really haven't looked back.

    4. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2

      Anecdote v. anecdote, but I use Google to frequently search for work related math things and I don't ever see it combining them. I think I'd notice if it suggested autocorrecting so I got things like "Category theory for hot Hermione/Bellatrix fan-fic". Um, maybe that example says more than I should be saying about my own preferences.

    5. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... is the fact that those search suggestions are likely the result of them being popular searches.

      It's a sick world, really.

      None of those searches are especially bad. In fact, they're very mild compared to the really bad stuff. Even the "little girl" one is most likely not about age, it's just people are too stupid to know the word petite. Especially people searching for porn on FB. But porn frequently plays on the young and petite angle and that doesn't mean kid or underage.

    6. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      I suspect it's something a litlle more mundane, like using the frequency of searches to rank up autocompletion. There are people out there that will game this behavior just for the lulz.

    7. Re:Even worse than the FB faux pas... by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      I for one take redheads very, very seriously -- thank you very much!

  4. Re:to be really sorry needs to cover all leagle co by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    +1 for trying to involve the 3M company into this. I predict a sticky situation.

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    #DeleteFacebook
  5. Uh huh by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Funny

    Facebook Says It is Sorry For Getting Caught Suggesting Child Sex Videos in Search

    FTFY.

  6. That's awful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "video of little girl giving oral"? That's terrible. Speaking in front of the whole classroom is stressful enough on pupils without someone recording a video of the oral. Have some respect.

  7. Re:Google is an ignorant evil culprit by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    Hiding searches for sexually charged mainstream song titles with safe search on would predominantly affect titles made by black artists, a lot of which are mainstream artists. For instance, the song you're complaining about is made by an academy award winning group. In fact the song itself is mainstream, trending #1 on Apple music a while back.

    Welcome to the age of degeneracy.

  8. Re:to be really sorry needs to cover all leagle co by slazzy · · Score: 1

    Is it a new type of beagle? Perhaps a some kind of cross between a Labrador and a Beagle?

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    Website Just Down For Me? Find out
  9. Seems easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Seems easy to fake these screenshots. Maybe I will try to make some and generate some more outrage.

  10. We're Sorry by ma1wrbu5tr · · Score: 1

    https://youtu.be/izXnCkrfjO0

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    Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
  11. I did RTFA and... what's "child grooming"? by DesertNomad · · Score: 1

    "The company apologized and said that it had never and would never allow child grooming on the site."

    Washing and combing their hair?

  12. Re:Little = not adult ?! by BronsCon · · Score: 1

    It also depends how many words Facebook will suggest at a time. If that limit is 4 and the full suggestion is "video of little girl giving oral report", all you'd see after "video of" is what's in the summary. It could (but probably is not) just be a case of people getting enraged before actually investigating the situation.

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    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  13. Re:Google is an ignorant evil culprit by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    So you get to celebrate a song about running a train on a woman and then turn around to complain about misogyny.

    How about we split it down the middle, the age of insanity.

  14. Sorry for the nasty suggestions... by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

    ...but we're not sorry for being creepy stalkers.

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