Meta to Remove Ad-Targeting Options Linked to Race, Religion
- Facebook, Instagram to lose ‘sensitive’ marketing categories
- Decision follows feedback from civil rights audit in 2020
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Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. will remove thousands of ad-targeting categories that helped marketers reach users of a particular race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation -- categories the social network says “may be perceived as sensitive.”
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram don’t ask users to share their race, religion or sexual orientation, and don’t allow marketers to target consumers based on those topics. But the company does offer advertisers thousands of other targeting options that relate to sensitive user characteristics, and could be tapped to infer information like race or sexual orientation.