Facebook has been forced to amend its ad targeting policies after an investigation by ProPublica found that the social network was permitting advertisers to target individuals with anti-Semitic beliefs.
Facebook has been forced to amend its ad targeting policies after an investigation by ProPublica found that the social network was permitting advertisers to target individuals with anti-Semitic beliefs.
The New York-based news organization found that advertisers were able to use a number of categories such as « Jew hater, » « How to burn Jews, » « History of ‘why jews ruin the world, ‘ » and « Hitler did nothing wrong. » All of these categories were created by users — rather than Facebook or advertisers — as they self-reported their education and employment history with offensive terms and labels.
As a result of ProPublica’s investigation — which found that advertisers had been able to target 2,300 people with anti-Semitic categorizations — Facebook has removed the offensive categories. In addition to this, the company, temporarily, is disallowing advertisers from using self-reported fields in ad targeting.
Facebook argues that few people would have been affected by the anti-Semitic targeting, saying: « Given that the number of people in these segments was incredibly low, an extremely small number of people were targeted in these campaigns. »
ProPublica shared a screenshot of the anti-Semitic targeting that was available through Facebook’s ad portal.
Announcing the changes to ad targeting policies, Facebook says (emphasis is Facebook’s) :
Advertisers who notice any offensive or inappropriate targeting fields are asked to report them.
Image credit: Naypong / Shutterstock
