Facebook’s Advertising Algorithms Targeted “Jew Haters”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sep 15, 2017
Facebook is having a rough couple of weeks…
Last week, Democrats and progressives who had once praised the company for promising to eradicate “fake news” on its platform were outraged by revelations that it had sold at least $100,000 in advertising to a Russian troll farm – an allegation that Facebook had initially denied when it first surfaced in the spring. Lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Mark Warner demanded more information from the company, even speculating that Congress may need to pass legislation to “protect Americans” from malicious foreigners dedicated to subverting the American Democratic process by…purchasing targeted ads.
Now, ProPublica is reporting that Facebook’s advertising algorithms inadvertently created a series of targeted-ad categories directed at anti-semites and racists. To test if these ad categories were real, ProPublica 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.
“Last week, acting on a tip, we logged into Facebook’s automated ad system to see if “Jew hater” was really an ad category. We found it, but discovered that the category — with only 2,274 people in it — was too small for Facebook to allow us to buy an ad pegged only to Jew haters.
Facebook’s automated system suggested “Second Amendment” as an additional category that would boost our audience size to 119,000 people, presumably because its system had correlated gun enthusiasts with anti-Semites.
Instead, we chose additional categories that popped up when we typed in “jew h”: “How to burn Jews,” and “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.’” Then we added a category that Facebook suggested when we typed in “Hitler”: a category called “Hitler did nothing wrong.” All were described as “fields of study.”
Now, the company’s advertising business is facing another scandal. According to ProPublica, 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.’”
The Rest…HERE
