On Thursday, Facebook announced its plans to remove detailed ad-targeting options that refer to sensitive topics, such as ads based on interactions with content about race, health, religious practices, or political beliefs.
Facebook Has Been Under Scrutiny for its Ad-Targeting Options
The social media giants, Facebook recently changed its name to Meta and which makes the huge majority of its revenue through digital advertising, and the company has been under intense scrutiny over its ad-targeting capabilities involving sensitive topics and rules in recent years.
Furthermore, in a blog post, Facebook gave examples of ad-targeting options that would no longer be supported on its platforms, such as “Lung cancer awareness,” “World Diabetes Day”, “LGBT culture”, “Jewish holidays” or political opinions and cultural problems. It said the transition would take place starting Jan. 19, 2022.
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The company has been struck with criticisms around its micro-targeting abilities, including over violations such as advertisers favoring against or targeting vulnerable groups. In 2019, it accepted to make changes to its ad-targeting options as part of an agreement over housing bias issues involving sensitive topics.
“We’ve heard concerns from experts that ad-targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups,” said Graham Mudd, the firm’s vice president of product marketing for ads, in the post.
The Change May Negatively Impact Businesses and Organizations
Moreover, the tailored ad abilities are employed by wide-ranging advertisers, including political operations and social issue groups as well as markets. “The decision to remove these ad-targeting options was not easy and we know this change may negatively impact some businesses and organizations,” Mudd said in the post, adding some advertising associates were worried they would not be able to utilize these ads to generate positive social evolution.
Advertisers Can Still Use Other Means to Promote their Products
Promoters on Facebook’s platforms can still target viewers by location, use their client lists, reach custom audiences who have interacted with their content, and send ads to people with similar characteristics to those users.
The problem of a political advertisement on social media platforms, including whether the content of lawmakers’ ads should be fact-checked, prompted much debate among the public, lawmakers, and corporations around the U.S. regulatory election.
Source: TechCrunch
