Facebook has been forced to apologise after it spent hours suggesting bizarre, vulgar and upsetting searches to users on Thursday night. The social network’s search suggestions, which are supposed to automatically offer the most popular search terms to users, apparently broke around 4am in the UK, and started to suggest unpleasant results for those who typed in “video of”. Multiple users posted examples on Twitter, with the site proposing searches including “video of girl sucking dick under water”, “videos of sexuals” and “video of little girl giving oral”. 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. Facebook admitted the surveys were a mistake, adding that it has “no intention” of allowing the behaviour.

Source: The Guardian March 16, 2018 10:07 UTC