"Clearly Unacceptable Error": Facebook After Labeling Black Men "Primates"

Facial recognition software has been blasted by civil rights advocates who point out problems with accuracy, particularly it comes to people who are not white.

Facebook on Friday said it disabled its topic recommendation feature after it mistook Black men for "primates" in video at the social network. A Facebook spokesperson called it a "clearly unacceptable error" and said the recommendation software involve was taken offline. "We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations," Facebook said in response to an AFP inquiry. "We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again."