Facebook: ‘We know we have more work to do’ [Updated]
The platform has been making headlines recently after reports that advertisers could target anti-Semitic groups. The issue shows the risk and pitfalls of automated systems.
Such is the lesson Facebook is learning after it recently made headlines for allowing brand managers to target users based on anti-Semitic phrases.
On Thursday, ProPublica reported:
Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” or, “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.'”
To test if these ad categories were real, we paid $30 to target those groups with three “promoted posts” — in which a ProPublica article or post was displayed in their news feeds. Facebook approved all three ads within 15 minutes.
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