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Can Facebook be trusted to abide by even its own stated standards? In the case of Internet political advertising the social giant wants<\/a> to be allowed to continue to self regulate \u2014 despite the scandal of Russian bought socially divisive ads<\/a> which (we now know<\/a>) were tainting democratic discussion during the 2016 US presidential election (and beyond<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u2018Don\u2019t regulate us, we can regulate ourselves \u2014 honest!<\/em>\u2018 is shaping up to be CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s massively moonshot new year project for 2018.<\/p>\n But results from a new ProPublica investigation suggest the tech giant is failing at even simple self-policing \u2014 undermining any claims it can responsibly manage the bad and even out-and-out illegal outcomes that are being enabled via its platform, and bolstering the case for more formal regulation.<\/p>\n Case in point: A year ago<\/a> Facebook said it would disable ethnic affinity ad targeting for housing, employment and credit-related ads, following a\u00a0ProPublica<\/a>\u00a0investigation that had suggested the platform\u2019s ad-targeting capabilities could be used for discriminatory advertising \u2014 particularly in housing and employment, where such practices are illegal.<\/p>\n This month ProPublica checked in again<\/a>, to see how Facebook is doing \u2014 by purchasing dozens of rental housing ads and asking that Facebook\u2019s ad platform exclude groups that are protected from discrimination under the US Federal Fair Housing Act \u2014 such as African Americans and Jews.<\/p>\n Its test ads promoted a fictional apartment for rent, targeted at people aged 18 to 65 who were living in New York, house hunting and likely to move \u2014 with ProPublica narrowing the audience by excluding certain \u201cBehaviors\u201d, listed in a section Facebook now calls \u201cMulticultural Affinity\u201d, including \u201cHispanic\u201d, \u201cAfrican American\u201d and \u201cAsian American\u201d.<\/p>\n However instead of the platform blocking the potentially discriminatory ad buys, ProPublica reports that all its ads were approved by Facebook \u201cwithin minutes\u201d \u2014 including an ad that sought to exclude potential renters \u201cinterested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam\u201d. It says that ad took the longest to approve of all its buys (22 minutes) \u2014 but that all the rest were approved within three minutes.<\/p>\n It also successfully bought ads that it judged Facebook\u2019s system should at least flag for self-certification because they were seeking to exclude other members of protected categories. But the platform just accepted housing ads blocked from being shown to categories including \u2018soccer moms\u2019, people interested in American sign language, gay men and people interested in wheelchair ramps.<\/p>\n Yet, back in February<\/a>, Facebook announced new \u201cstronger\u201d anti-discriminatory ad polices, saying it was deploying machine learning tech tools to help it identify ads in the categories of concern.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve updated\u00a0our policies<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0make our existing prohibition against discrimination even stronger. We make it clear that advertisers may not discriminate against people based on personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, medical or genetic condition,\u201d it wrote then.<\/p>\n Of the new tech tools, Facebook said: \u201cThis will allow us to more quickly provide notices and educational information to advertisers \u2014 and more quickly respond to violations of our policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Explaining how the new system would work, Facebook said advertisers who attempt to show \u201can ad that we identify as offering a housing, employment or credit opportunity\u201d and which \u201ceither includes or excludes\u00a0our multicultural advertising segments \u2014 which consist of people interested in seeing content related to the African American, Asian American and US Hispanic communities\u201d will find the platform disapproves the ad.<\/p>\n The new system would also require all advertisers that attempt to buy targeted advertising in the categories of concern to self-certify they are complying with Facebook\u2019s anti-discrimination policies and with \u201capplicable anti-discrimination laws\u201d.<\/p>\n ProPublica says it never even encountered these self-certification screens, as well as never having any of its ad buys blocked.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder its own policies, Facebook should have flagged these ads, and prevented the posting of some of them. Its failure to do so revives questions about whether the company is in compliance with federal fair housing rules, as well as about its ability and commitment to police discriminatory advertising on the world\u2019s largest social network,\u201d it writes.<\/p>\n Responding to ProPublica\u2019s findings, Facebook sent a statement attributed to Ami Vora, VP of product management, in which she concedes its system failed in this instance. \u201cThis was a failure in our enforcement and we\u2019re disappointed that we fell short of our commitments. The rental housing ads purchased by ProPublica should have but did not trigger the extra review and certifications we put in place due to a technical failure,\u201d said Vora.<\/p>\n She went on to claim Facebook\u2019s anti-discrimination system had \u201csuccessfully flagged millions of ads\u201d in the credit, employment and housing categories \u2014 but also said Facebook will now begin requiring self-certification for ads in all categories that choose to exclude an audience segment.<\/p>\n \u201cOur systems continue to improve but we can do better,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The latter phrase is now a very familiar refrain from Facebook where content review and moderation is concerned. Aside from socially divisive political disinformation, it has faced growing criticism this year for enabling the spread of content such as\u00a0extremist propaganda<\/a> and\u00a0child exploitation<\/a>, as well as for multiple incidents of its tools being used to broadcast suicides and murders<\/a>.<\/p>\n The wider question for governments and regulators is at what point will Facebook\u2019s attempts to \u2018do better\u2019 be deemed just not good enough?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/S43w8hMrNy8\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can Facebook be trusted to abide by even its own stated standards? 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