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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.

5 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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
    2. 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.

  2. 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
  3. Uh huh by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    FTFY.