Facebook reforms targetting systems to reduce risk of abuse

In a recent blog post, social media network, Facebook announced that it has banned 5000 advertising functions from its platform to avoid discriminatory advertising. The move was made to ensure that advertisers will not discriminate against their user base on the basis of ethnicity and religious beliefs. Facebook’s targetting systems allow advertisers to exclude certain groups of users based on specific parameters. It was found that these options enable advertisers to segregate groups based on their affinities to race and religion.

Facebook has commented that it wants to ensure that advertisers target users based on their likes and interests and that it does not become a function to enable abuse of users. This issue was brought to light when the U.S department of Housing and Urban development filed an administrative complaint against the social network saying that its targeting function violated the tenets of the Fair Housing Act where it showed users ads based on interests in Church or the Bible enabling them to make discriminatory choices whereas it did not show relevant ads to users interested in ‘accessibility’ or ‘deaf culture’

Facebook has also said that in addition to removing targeting functions the company is rolling out a new certification requiring advertisers to comply with non-discrimination policies according to reports.

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