A New Zealand carpet company was appalled that its online advertisements had been running on a social media site associate with a rash of teen suicides.

The site, ask.fm, is aimed at insecure teenagers, who are encouraged to ask anonymous questions. But, showing social media’s dark potential, the site has attracted trolls who post spiteful comments on the site in response to the questions.

Ads from New Zealand’s Cavalier Bremworth were running on the site, prompting the company to request that Google cease running their ads on it.

Company spokeswoman Desiree Keown says the company’s media agency briefed Google on where to place its ads, but it was obviously ignored.

“I was alerted late yesterday afternoon and we asked immediately, our media agency contacted Google immediately to ask them to take it down.”

She says: “We were not happy at all to be associated with a website like this.

“It’s not a good look and obviously we were very concerned to have it removed immediately.”

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