Facebook removes 5,000 ads targeting options to prevent discrimination

Facebook said it would remove more than 5000 ad targeting options in a bid to prevent discriminatory advertisements on its social network.

On Tuesday (August 21, 2018) morning Facebook announced that it will change the whole ad targeting options on Facebook which helps to prevent from the discrimination and exclude the targeted audience based on ads such as �" ethnicity, religion, national origin or disability. The company said, we’re committed to protecting people from discriminatory advertising on our platforms. And that’s why, we are going to remove over 5,000 ad targeting options to prevent from the misuse of its ad platform.

This news comes after a new complaint filed against Facebook on this Friday (August 17, 2018) by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) framed Facebook’s ad settings help landlords and home sellers to violate the Fair Housing Act. HUD said in their statement that Facebook’s ads let allow sellers disregard laws by targeting specific demographics.

Housing Secretary Ben Carson accused Facebook on Friday (August 22, 2018), that it made easy to exclude people based on their religion, gender or ethnicity by providing advertising tools of filtered people to landlords and developers, it enabling illegal housing discrimination. In the other statement of Assistant Secretary of HUD’s, Anna Maria Farias said that “When Facebook uses the vast amount of personal data it collects to help advertisers to discriminate, it’s the same as slamming the door in someone’s face.”

When filed the complaint and statement after statement by HUD’s, Facebook suddenly responded on this and issued a statement on Friday afternoon, “There is no place for discrimination on Facebook, it’s strictly prohibited in our policies. Over the past year we’ve strengthened our systems to further protect against misuse. We’re aware of the statement of interest filed and will respond in court, we’ll continue working directly with HUD to address their concerns”.

In March, several housing groups sued Facebook in federal district court in New York for engaging illegal housing discrimination through its advertising tools.

And, on Tuesday (August 22, 2018) Facebook response in a blog post and mention to removing 5,000 targeting options to prevent from discriminatory, “While these options have been used in legitimate ways to reach people interested in a certain product or service, we think minimizing the risk of abuse is more important. This includes limiting the ability for advertisers to exclude audiences that relate to attributes such as ethnicity or religion.”

Facebook has wide audience to target of 2.2 billion users and convert in their potential customers and that’s why it’s quite popular among the advertisers. Along with, Facebook add in their statement, “We want to help educate advertisers about their obligations under our policies and that’s why, they’ll introduce a new certification will roll out gradually to all US advertisers via our Ads Manager tool. Advertisers will be required to complete this certification in order to continue advertising on Facebook. We’ve designed this education in consultation with outside experts to underscore the difference between acceptable ad targeting and ad discrimination.”