Facebook Announces Launch Of Anti-Discrimination Feature

And this is going to work?

Facebook is about to get more complicated, it seems.

The site has developed methods that purport to weed out discriminatory targeting in site advertising.

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 The social media giant’s new policies name specific protected races, ethnicities and nationalities, and specifically outline prohibited discriminatory practices on the site.

Facebook says that with the new tool, if an advertiser sought to exclude African Americans, Asian Americans or Hispanics from seeing an ad related to housing, credit or employment, the site would block the ad from being published.

Apparently, a concern was raised back in October 2016 that those advertisements that pop up on the side of the screen when you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed may be targeting users by race or ethnicity. In November, Facebook announced that they would begin examining the practices of their advertisers and would work on something to soothe the howling beasts of political correctness.

Facebook announced:

“Since committing to these changes last fall, we’ve heard from public and private sector organizations,” the company wrote in their post. “Several organizations have asked us to work with them to help identify ways that our advertising technology could be used to promote inclusion and opportunity for underserved communities, while also protecting against discriminatory uses.”

They struck the right notes with the appropriate groups.

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The social media platform noted that members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were among those who collaborated and supported the new updates.

“Facebook has done the right thing by building new systems to help make sure that people aren’t denied opportunities because of who they are,” said Rachel Goodman, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program. “We urge the rest of the online advertising industry to follow suit.”

 

“Facebook’s revised policies should serve as an industry model for companies that utilize targeted advertising to ensure they do not violate the federal anti-discrimination laws, including those prohibiting discrimination in housing, credit, and employment,” said Coty Montag, deputy director of litigation at The NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

To nutshell all of this: Black, Hispanic, and Asian Facebook users are about to get flooded with a lot more click bait-y crap on their Facebook pages.

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