Facebook is apologizing for letting advertisers use phrases like «Jew-haters» as a targeting criteria and for not noticing it until it was pointed out.
The company is also tightening policies and tools that let businesses target advertisements to its 2 billion users, hoping to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
The move follows a ProPublica report that found advertisers could use terms such as «how to burn Jews» to target ads to people with these terms in their profile.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, wrote in a post on Wednesday that the company «never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way—and that is on us.»
Sandberg said Facebook is taking steps to ensure that material violating its community standards cannot be used to target ads.
Explore further: Facebook revamps policy after report on anti-Semitic targeting
