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Facebook has tightened the reins on its ad-targeting capabilities following a ProPublica investigation that found that Facebook's algorithmically generated categories allowed advertisements to be targeted to individuals who used phrases associated with anti-Semitism. Facebook denied that an algorithm was to blame, instead blaming manual entries by Facebook users (such as listing your occupation as "Jew Hater" with education from "Hitler's School of Hard Knocks"):
In a [September 20th post], Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg made her first public statement on a recent ProPublica investigation of ad-targeting to hate groups, calling the issue "a fail on our part." Last week, ProPublica's investigation found that Facebook clients could target ads using keywords like "jew hater" and "Hitler did nothing wrong."
Sandberg claims the ad-targeting was the result of manual entries in the education and employer fields. (In simple terms, someone listed their job as "jew hater.") That explanation contradicts the initial ProPublica article, which claimed the categories were algorithmically generated. "We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way – and that is on us," Sandberg wrote. "And we did not find it ourselves – and that is also on us."
Sandberg laid out three changes in how the company targets ads, although each is largely an extension of existing efforts. After restricting self-reported fields for education and profession, Facebook will now restore approximately 5,000 of the most popular responses, all of which have now been reviewed to ensure they don't violate company standards. The company will also devote more resources to ensuring that "content that goes against our community standards cannot be used to target ads," and add more human oversight to its advertising system more broadly.
Facebook now has a vetted list of around 5,000 targeting options (such as "nurse" or "teacher") and will manually approve new ones.
Also at Recode, Slate, and Marketing Land.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday September 25 2017, @08:39AM
Actually, what we need is transparency in political funding. If someone (regardless of their political bent) wants to support or oppose a particular issue/candidate/party/whatever, they should be (and are) free to do so.
Where I think this needs to change is that when an individual/group/corporation/NGO/State actor/whatever provides support/opposition, whether that be via money/ads/volunteers/breaking windows/publishing propaganda/etc., a full and unambiguous disclosure of who is responsible should be required. In the U.S., that isn't even close to being the case. In fact, the way things are set up, it's almost impossible to determine who is responsible for a particular activity or message.
That will give those who encounter such activity a clear idea as to *who* is responsible, which can go a long way in helping to understand the dynamics, motives and nature of the activity. As I said in a previous comment [soylentnews.org]:
Then you can have actual evidence to blame those you've been instructed to hate, rather than just blathering on like you usually do, Runaway.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr