Facebook is taking steps to address allegations that its ethnic affinity ad-targeting options have indirectly led to discriminatory advertising.
Vice president of U.S. public policy and chief privacy officer Erin Egan announced in a Newsroom post that the social network plans to build tools to detect and automatically disable the use of these targeting features for certain types of ads, such as those involving housing, employment and credit.
Erin also said Facebook will update its advertising policies to make it clear that discriminatory advertising will not be tolerated.
According to Egan, Facebook has met with lawmakers including New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) of the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss the issue, as well as with groups including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Brookings Institution and Upturn, and she added: Recently, policymakers and civil rights leaders have expressed concerns that advertisers could misuse some aspects of our affinity marketing segments. Specifically, they?ve raised the possibility that some advertisers might use these segments to run ads that discriminate against people, particularly in areas where certain groups have historically faced discriminationR...