Facebook sorry for 'sick', 'disturbing' child abuse suggestions

Facebook has been forced to apologise after sickening suggestions appeared in its search box.] Photo / 123rf

Facebook has apologised after suggesting videos of child sex abuse to users in its search results.

The social media giant said it was "very sorry" after a range of sickening messages showed up in the site's search bar overnight.

Users reported that if they typed the phrase "video of" into the site's search engine, they'd be met with a number of disturbing suggestions involving children.

It's not clear how the messages appeared, news.com.au reported.

"We're very sorry this happened. As soon as we became aware of these offensive predictions we removed them," Facebook said in a statement.

"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.

"We do not allow sexually explicit imagery, and we are committed to keeping such content off of our site.

"We are looking into why these search predictions appeared, and going forward, we're working to improve the quality of search predictions."

Earlier this month, the network was blasted for appearing to condone paedophilia by including a strange question in a survey it asked a select group of users to complete.

The question asked users their opinion on how Facebook should ideally handle a case in which a male adult solicits sexual pictures from an underage girl on the website.

After the question was posted to social media it prompted a swift backlash, and Facebook pulled the survey.

In an official statement, the network reiterated that it did not intend to change its position on content that pertains to pornography or paedophilia.