An investigation carried out on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) by ProPublica journalists has revealed that the social media platform allows targeted ads that can be racist.
According to the results of the investigation, the company provides advertisers with the ability to target their ads to specific users and even includes a filter for excluding various ethnic groups. The company has a feature called “Ethnic Affinities” that allows advertisers to exclude certain groups of people based on factors such as gender and race. Some of these factors are not allowed by federal law in employment and housing.
“The problem is when Facebook develops a tool like that … if it’s an advertiser who’s working in a part of the market covered by discrimination laws, like the housing market, then Facebook is going to be liable for discrimination,”stated civil rights lawyer John Relman.
Terry Parris Jr. and Julia Angwin of ProPublica carried out a successful experiment which involved purchasing an ad in the housing category of the Facebook social platform. They found out that the “Ethnic Affinities” tool made it possible to exclude Hispanic, African-American and Asia-American people so that they do not see ads targeted to white people. This is a direct violation of the Fair Housing act of 1968.
The act aims to foster fairness so that minority groups do not end up facing less housing opportunities because of the color of their skin, religious beliefs or the ethnic background. Facebook’s public policy manager Steve Satterfield stated that the policies employed by the social network require advertisers to follow the law rather than relying on Facebook’s personal data to send out any discriminative ads.
Satterfield also pointed out that people do not have to state their race when they sign up on the social platform. The “Ethnic Affinities” feature targets groups based on posts and pages that they have liked on the social platform. Facebook also stated that it plans to shift the feature to a different section.
Facebook stock closed the latest trading session at $131.29.
