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- Facebook has apologized for labelling Black men "primates" in a featured video.
- The company told The New York Times that it was an "unacceptable error."
- The offensive term appeared on a video titled: "White man calls cops on black men at marina."
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Facebook on Friday issued an apology for mislabelling Black men as 'primates' in a video featured on the social media network.
The New York Times first reported the story. A Facebook spokesperson told the publication that it was a "clearly unacceptable error," and said the recommendation software involved had been disabled.
"We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realised this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again," the spokesperson said.
In a statement to the publication, Facebook said: "We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations."
The offensive terminology appeared on a video, dated June 27, 2020, which was posted by The Daily Mail. The clip was titled "white man calls cops on black men at marina," and featured Black men in disputes with white police officers and civilians.
Facebook users who watched the video received an automated prompt asking if they would like to "keep seeing videos about Primates," according to the New York Times.
The video was in no way related to monkeys, chimpanzees, or primates.
Facebook did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Darci Groves, a former content design manager at Facebook, said a friend screen grabbed the recommendation and sent it to her, The Times reported. She shared it on Twitter and posted it to a product feedback forum for current and former Facebook employees. A product manager for Facebook watch responded saying the company was "looking into the root cause."
Groves said the prompt was "horrifying and egregious."
Technology companies including Twitter and Google have come under fire in the past for biases within their artificial intelligence software.
Last year, Twitter looked into the possibility that its automated tool which selects which part of a picture to preview in tweets might be racially biased against Black people, Insider's Isobel Asher Hamilton reported. In August, the company announced it would offer a$3,500 reward to people who can fix the issue in a new competition.
In 2015, Google's algorithm reportedly tagged two Black people's faces with the word 'gorilla.' The company apologized for the flaw and said they were "genuinely sorry that this happened" in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.
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