Facebook (now Meta) has a profitable advertising business, which posted revenue of US$28.2 billion last quarter. However, advertising on the platform has always been shrouded in controversy over the use of targeted advertising, and Meta has announced that it will ban targeted ads for certain sensitive subjects such as race, religion, political positioning, sexual orientation and others. The change takes effect on January 19, 2022.
New measure targets mental health
Banning ads that contain sensitive subjects will be Meta's new way to protect its users from possible uncomfortable content. The company further emphasizes that ad targets are based not on physical characteristics or personal attributes, but rather on their activities as a whole. Thinking about the new measure, Meta understands that users who come across this type of ad can feel discriminated against, reinforce addictions, cause stress and even negatively influence their behavior.
Examples of targeting ads that will no longer exist include:
• Health causes (eg “Lung Cancer Awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”)
• Sexual orientation (eg, “same sex marriage” and “LGBTQIA+ culture”)
• Religious practices and groups (eg, “Catholic Church” and “Jewish Holidays”)
• Political alignments, social issues, causes, organizations and political figures
This is a somewhat old concern faced by the company, as many users, for years, have reported that there were ads linked to anti-Semitic issues, as well as pseudosciences, which were normally reproduced on social networks. The fact that companies that make these advertisements, targeting the places where they live or jobs, for example, reached a large number of people, but that excluded people of non-white race.
The company says that even after updating the targeting options, users can still be impacted by content that they are not interested in. Filters for ad content — which now include politics, maternity and paternity, alcohol and pets — will be updated with new options such as gambling and weight loss, among others, so that the users will be impacted by content that is relevant to them.
Despite the reasons given by Meta on mental health, this is probably not the main point here. Europe is preparing regulations to ban ads that are made on the basis of data tracking, meaning if the company doesn't want to run into trouble on the continent, it must follow their policies.
In the third quarter of this year, Facebook made more than US$28 million from ads alone. The change about banning ads on Meta's social media will be implemented on January 19, 2022.
Source: GMB
