Facebook says sorry for suicide girl dating advert

Facebook has apologised for a dating website advert that featured a photograph of a teenage girl who committed suicide after being bullied online.

The social networking site has removed the advert and banned the company involved after the parents of Rehtaeh Parsons said they were ‘disgusted' by the use of their daughter's picture.

The advert, which her father Glen Canning highlighted online, featured the teenager's picture next to the words: ‘Find love in Canada! Meet Canadian girls and women for friendship, dating or relationships. Sign up now!'

The advert referred users to ionechat.com, but the website is no longer available.

‘This is an extremely unfortunate example of an advertiser scraping an image from the inteet and using it in their ad campaign,' Facebook said.

‘This is a gross violation of our ad policies and we have removed the ad and permanently deleted the advertiser's account. We apologise for any harm this caused.'

Rehtaeh's life support machine was tued off in April after a suicide attempt, following what she said was two years of bullying.

Facebook has apologised and banned the advertiser involved (Picture: Facebook)

Her family, from Nova Scotia, said the teenager was raped when she was 15, and a photo of the alleged sexual assault was widely shared on Facebook.

‘We're constantly reliving the nightmare over and over again,' her mother Leah Parsons said.

Two 18-year-old men are due to appear in court tomorrow charged with child poography offences in relation to the case.