August 22, 2018—Facebook announced it's making a change to how its ad targeting system works in order to tackle the misuse of its platform to discriminate and exclude audiences based on factors like ethnicity and religion, reported MSN News.
The company says it's now removing over 5,000 ad targeting options that could have been misused to place discriminatory ads across its platform, according to the report.
"While these options have been used in legitimate ways to reach people interested in a certain product or service, we think minimizing the risk of abuse is more important," the company explained in a blog post. Facebook didn't provide a list of the options being removed, but noted they related to attributes such as religion and ethnicity.
According to MSN News, it also said that it would roll out a new certification to U.S. advertisers through its Ads Manager tool, that will require the advertisers to properly register their compliance with Facebook's non-discrimination policy if they post housing, employment or credit ads. The advertisers will need to complete the certification, which involves being educated on the policy and agreeing to it through a form.
