Due to the nature of Facebook in which anyone can post pretty much anything they want and say whatever they want, more often than not it’s more about dealing with the aftermath of such incidents rather than actually preventing them, like in the case of the spreading of fake news in which it is only in more recent times that Facebook is trying to clamp down on it.The same can be said for hate speech on the social network where recently it was discovered that due to a flaw in Facebook’s ad system, it allowed users to purchase ads that targeted “Jew Haters” or anti-Semites. Apparently this was allowed as Facebook’s ad network allowed users to choose anti-Semitic sentiments as valid ad categories, and obviously this did not go down well as Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg has since come forward and announced that they’ll be clamping down on such ads in the future.
According to Sandberg, this will come in the form of clarifying Facebook’s advertising policies to ensure that content that goes against their community standards can be used to target ads. “This includes anything that directly attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender or gender identity, or disabilities or diseases.”
She also adds that they’ll be adding more human review and oversight to their automated processes to ensure that nothing slips past them anymore. Last but not least, Sandberg says that, “we are working to create a program to encourage people on Facebook to report potential abuses of our ads system to us directly. We have had success with such programs for our technical systems and we believe we can do something similar with ads.”
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