Facebook Updates Tool That Allowed Advertisers to Target Anti-Semitic Categories
Social network deactivates self-reported ad fields that gave clients options to target “jew hater” and other racist descriptions
Sean Burch | September 15, 2017 @ 8:23 AM
Last Updated: September 15, 2017 @ 11:35 AM
Facebook is updating its ad targeting service once again, after ProPublica reported that advertisers could aim their content at more than 2,000 anti-Semitic users.
Businesses were able to target ads at Facebook users with self-reported details like “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” or, “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.'” Following this finding, the social network updated its ad fields on Thursday, removing the self-reported options that allowed advertisers to target crude and racist users.
“Keeping our community safe is critical to our mission. And to help ensure that targeting is not used for discriminatory purposes, we are removing these self-reported targeting fields until we have the right processes in place to help prevent this issue,” said Facebook, in a blog post. “We want Facebook to be a safe place for people and businesses, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to keep hate off Facebook.”
“ProPublica surfaced that these offensive education and employer fields were showing up in our ads interface as targetable audiences for campaigns,” the post went on to say. “We immediately removed them.”
Facebook will also allow advertisers to report offensive targeting options it finds.
Social media advertisers were able to target 2,300 users that had shown interest in anti-Semitic themes up until this week, when ProPublica shed light on the matter. The news site paid $30 to promote posts through anti-Semitic fields, which were approved in less than 15 minutes by Facebook.
It was another black eye to Facebook’s advertising business, which has been under fire recently. The company revealed Russia-linked “inauthentic accounts” bought $100,000 worth of ads between June 2015 and May 2017 — months after Time reported Russian profiles were spreading fake news during the 2016 election.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.