Statement from Rob Goldman, Vice President, Ad Products
People, businesses and organizations around the world use Facebook to advertise.
It's important we make sure they use our tools responsibly. And a key part of this is
working to stop ads that discriminate against people. We have guidelines to prevent
this and other types of abuse, and we've strengthened how we enforce those
guidelines over the years.
We've also made mistakes and learned from them. ProPublica recently found that
safeguards we put in place earlier this year were not as comprehensive as they
should have been. This was a failure in our enforcement. We must do better.
We’ve sought the advice of people and groups with unique perspectives on
discrimination in ads. In our conversations with these experts, we’ve committed to
do the following:
1. We are undertaking a review of “exclusion” – the ability for advertisers to
exclude specific audiences when creating ads on Facebook. Our review will
focus on the use of exclusion for multicultural affinity groups and other
potentially sensitive segments (e.g., segments that relate to the LGBT
community or to religious groups).
2. We will share what we learn with groups focused on discrimination in ads,
work with them to identify further improvements we can make, and then
publish the steps we're taking.
3. During this review, no advertiser will be able to create ads that exclude
multicultural affinity groups starting on December 1 st, 2017. Ads targeting or
excluding potentially sensitive segments are subject to expanded review
before they appear on Facebook.
4. In addition to the enhanced review, advertisers will have to certify that they
understand our anti-discrimination policies and the law when using
multicultural affinity segments for inclusion on ads on Facebook. These selfcertification measures will be introduced over the next several weeks.
5. We've made it easier for people to report any ad they see on our services so
we can review for violations of our ad guidelines – just tap the upper righthand corner of any ad.
We are grateful for the feedback we’ve received so far – particularly from members
of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Representatives Emanuel Cleaver,
Robin Kelly and Bonnie Watson Coleman – and we’ll continue keeping people
informed on how we’re preventing the misuse of our ads tools.