Facebook: Meta removes discriminatory criteria from its ad targeting technology

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, will change its targeting practices and pay a $115,054 fine to end lawsuits by the US government, which accused Facebook of facilitating racist discrimination.

According to the US government, social media technologies allowed advertisers to choose who could see their ads, based on gender, skin color, social background, religion, family status, or disability.

“This is a historic agreement,” Kristen Clarke, the Justice Ministry’s civil rights chief, said in a statement.

“This is the first time Meta will stop one of its algorithmic targeting tools and change its algorithms for housing ads after civil rights lawsuits,” she added.

In March 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a lawsuit against Facebook saying that companies had used the platform’s tools to “exclude people classified as parents, not born in the United States, not Christians, who are interested in disability access, Hispanic culture, or a wide range of other interests.”

The agreement reached on Tuesday after a year of talks has yet to be approved by a court. He expects the California social media giant to change its targeting system for housing ads.