Facebook allowed targeted ads to 'Jew haters'

According to a report by the U.S. portal ProPublica, the target group of "Jew-haters" could be selected for the marketing of Nazi memorabilia or the promotion of radical right-wing events.

Facebook removed the advertising category after ProPublica presented its research. The target group was based on information that Facebook users provide about themselves, such as their educational background, age and worldview.

ProPublica was able to place ads for people who had, for example, entered "Nazi Party" as their employer. However, the target groups were rather small, ProPublica qualified. For example, it was able to reach 2274 Facebook members in the category "Jew Hater" and 3149 and 2449 profiles with "German Schutzstaffel" and "Nazi Party" as their employer.

They alone were too small to be able to place advertisements only for them. However, this was possible after users with an interest in the NPD were included in the selection (194,600).

Facebook announced reaction

Facebook said in a blog post Friday night that targeted ads based on terms entered by users themselves would be disabled until it could prevent such abuse.

Facebook's guidelines strictly prohibited attacking people because of their characteristics. That includes membership in a religious group, he said. "Still, content that violates our standards keeps popping up. We know we have a lot of work to do."

Last week, Facebook was forced to admit that its advertising platform was misused for political ads by "inauthentic" accounts linked to Russia during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

On Facebook, you can place targeted ads for a selection of thousands of categories - in addition to gender, age, and place of residence, these can also include interests or language, for example.

In the course of the research, "ProPublica" itself placed three ads directed at anti-Semites. The ads were accepted by the Facebook system within 15 minutes. (SDA)