Now, in light of a ProPublica examination and pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus, Facebook says it’s acted to taking a closer look at its promotion policies, its COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote in a letter to CBC Chairperson Cedric Richmond.
Until Facebook decides out how to ensure merchants don’t use its tools in a discriminatory way, Facebook will momentarily disable the option that lets merchants exclude multicultural affinity groups from their audience. As Sandberg wrote in her letter to the CBC, multicultural affinity groups “are produced up of people whose activities on Facebook suggest they may be interested in ads related to the African American, Hispanic American, or Asian American communities.”
Multicultural marketing, Sandberg said in her letter, is well-known in the ad industry. There are “many genuine uses for this kind of marketing,” she said, but there are also businesses that advertisers use Facebook to segregate against people in the areas of housing, employment and credit loans.
“By allowing online merchants to promote or market a community or home for the plan of sale to select an ‘ethnic affinity’ as part of their advertising campaign, Facebook is complicit in advancing restrictive housing practices,” members of the CBC said last year.
Facebook said it also will take a look at how merchants are using exclusion targeting across other “sensitive sections,” like ones that relate to members of the LGBTQ identity and people with disabilities.
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