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Facebook Enabled Advertisers To Reach 'Jew Haters' (propublica.org)

ProPublica is reporting that Facebook "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 organization even went so far as to test these ad categories by paying $30 to target those groups with three "promoted posts" -- in which a ProPublica article or post was displayed in their news feeds. Facebook reportedly approved all three ads within 15 minutes. From the report: After we contacted Facebook, it removed the anti-Semitic categories -- which were created by an algorithm rather than by people -- and said it would explore ways to fix the problem, such as limiting the number of categories available or scrutinizing them before they are displayed to buyers. In all likelihood, the ad categories that we spotted were automatically generated because people had listed those anti-Semitic themes on their Facebook profiles as an interest, an employer or a "field of study." Facebook's algorithm automatically transforms people's declared interests into advertising categories. [ProPublica provides a screenshot of their ad buying process on the company's advertising portal.]

"There are times where content is surfaced on our platform that violates our standards," said Rob Leathern, product management director at Facebook. "In this case, we've removed the associated targeting fields in question. We know we have more work to do, so we're also building new guardrails in our product and review processes to prevent other issues like this from happening in the future."

3 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Re: In other words by bestweasel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nice try but left wing progressives don't hate Jews and many Jews are left wing progressives. You may have confused antisemitism with dislike of some of the actions of the Israeli state, most obviously their mistreatment of the Palestinians.

  2. Re:There must be money in it by sheramil · · Score: 5, Funny

    False alarm, everyone. They were targeting "Jew hatters" and were looking for a distributor for their yarmulkes.

    (rolls eyes) goyim.

  3. Re:So... by A.+I.+Agent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In countries with severe censorship, the rumor mill allows fringe ideas to spread rapidly, and they are more easily believed because nobody believes the official denials of the authorities. So, if you are calling for censorship, we already know from experience that your plan won't work. To confirm what I'm saying, all you have to do is look at the extremely paranoid theories about Jews held by Muslims living under authoritarian governments.

    Keep in mind that all the great scientific theories were once fringe ideas. Your notion that an idea should be suppressed merely because few hold it would bring a halt to scientific development.

    I think it is only fair to point out that hatred is a two-way street, and if you find members of group X hating group Y, you inevitably find members of group Y hating group X.