Facebook parent company Meta to remove sensitive ad targeting options, read details

Targeted advertising has been in use over several digital platforms including e-commerce, online dating, SVF applications and social media applications. The technique uses algorithms to identify the interests of the user and then display advertisements with similar topics. Over the past few years, a social media platform that has benefited in billions using the same technology is Facebook. With a global audience of billions, Facebook generates a fortune by running advertisements on the platform. That being said, the recent pinpointing and scrutiny might have been alarming for the company.

Facebook's parent company Meta says it will remove sensitive ad targeting options related to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion or sexual orientation beginning on Jan. 19. Currently, advertisers can target people who have expressed interest in issues, public figures or organisations connected to these topics. That information comes from tracking user activity on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms the company owns. For instance, someone who's shown interest in same-sex marriage may be shown an ad from a non-profit supporting same-sex marriage.

Meta is removing sensitive ad categories from Facebook

But the categories could also be misused and Meta, formerly Facebook, has been under intense scrutiny from regulators and the public to clean its platform of abuse and misinformation. Meta Platforms Inc. said in a blog post-Tuesday that the decision was not easy and we know this change may negatively impact some businesses and organisations." Shares of the company closed at $335.37 Tuesday, down almost 1%.

"Some of our advertising partners have expressed concerns about these targeting options going away because of their ability to help generate positive societal change, while others understand the decision to remove them," wrote Graham Mudd, vice president of marketing and ads. “Like many of our decisions, this was not a simple choice and required a balance of competing interests where there was advocacy in both directions.” The Menlo Park, California-based company, which last year made $86 billion in revenue thanks in large part to its granular ad targeting options, has had a slew of problems with how it serves ads to its billions of users.

For the September 2021 quarter, Facebook reported advertising revenue of over $28 billion, which is a 33% rise when compared to the same quarter last year. Daily active users for the month of September remained to be around two billion, which is a six per cent rise from last year. Now that Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta, there might be more changes in the operations at all the child brands and services, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook (the social media platform). In a letter from Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta announced that the company has aligned itself to a new goal - the development of Metaverse. 

With inputs from AP