San Francisco – A Facebook algorithm asked users if they wanted to see more “primate videos” under a UK newspaper footage showing people of color. The news was reported by the New York Times and Facebook ran for cover by disabling its topic recommendation feature.
The video in question is from the British newspaper Daily Mail, it dates back to more than a year ago and is entitled “The white man calls the cops against the black men at the marina”.
It only shows people, not monkeys. A Facebook spokesperson called the episode a “clearly unacceptable mistake” and claimed that the referral software involved was taken offline.
“We apologize to anyone who has seen these offensive recommendations,” Facebook said in response to an AFP investigation. “We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized it was happening, so we can investigate the cause and prevent it from happening again.”