Facebook Analyses User Race to Serve Ads

Facebook Analyses User Race to Serve Ads
Short Title	Facebook Analyses Users Race to Sell Discriminatory Ads
Location	Global
Date	August 2020
Solove Harm	Exclusion
Information	Ethnicity
Threat Actors	Advertisers on Facebook, Facebook
Individuals
Affected	Users of Facebook
High Risk Groups	Ethnic minority
Tangible Harms	Employment

In 2020 Facebook was found to be allowing advertisers to post discriminatory ads, based on people's race.

Description

In May 2020, a Wisconsin health care agency, Tenderness Health Care, posted a job ad on Facebook looking for personal care workers. According to Facebook’s “Why am I seeing this ad” pop-up, when the agency purchased the ad, it asked Facebook to not show it to anyone over 54 years of age. And they asked Facebook to show it specifically to people who have “African American multicultural affinity.”

A non profit news website The Markup reached out to Facebook and brought the ad to their attention, the company took it down, according to a Facebook spokesperson.

United States Federal law prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of age and race, including in advertising open jobs.

A week after The Markup contacted Facebook, Facebook announced it was eliminating the multicultural affinity categories altogether after years of internal debate.

This is not the first time Facebook is found to be serving discriminatory advertisment. In 2017 Facebook's ad targeting has raised concerns with recruitment ads as it was excluding older candidates from job ads.

Breakdown

Threat: Facebook targeting people with discriminatiry ads
At-Risk group: Facebook users
Harm: Exclusion
Secondary Consequences: Employment

Sources

https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2020/08/25/does-facebook-still-sell-discriminatory-ads