Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Facebook’s removal of 4 ad targeting options does not apply to existing campaigns

Facebook’s removal of 4 ad targeting options does not apply to existing campaigns

The disabling of ads targeted based on people’s employers, schools, fields of study and job titles only applies to new campaigns.

Tim Peterson on September 19, 2017 at 3:52 pm | Reading time: 2 minutes

Last week, Facebook removed four ad-targeting options after a ProPublica report found that the fields could be used to target ads to people who filled in “Jew hater” as their educational field of study and “NaziParty” as their employer.

“To help ensure that targeting is not used for discriminatory purposes, we are removing these self-reported targeting fields until we have the right processes in place to help prevent this issue,” the company wrote in a blog post published last week. The four targeting options in question are people’s school, employer, field of study and job title, which Facebook’s algorithm populated by crawling the text people had submitted as entries on their Facebook profiles.

However, the removal only applies to new campaigns. Existing campaigns that use school, employer, field of study or job titles as targeting options are not affected, according to a Facebook spokesperson. The terms cited in the report were not found in any targeting fields of existing campaigns, the spokesperson said. I’ve asked if Facebook has confirmed that similarly offensive terms like the ones cited are also not being targeted and will update here if and when the company responds.

That Facebook would make a change to its ad platform and not apply the change retroactively is not unusual. The company typically rolls out changes over time, allowing old options to phased out as the campaigns using those options come to an end. That’s how Facebook handled a similar ad-targeting controversy last year when ProPublica drew attention to how Facebook’s ethnic affinity targeting could be used to exclude audiences based on race.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    Webinar: The key to email marketing success
    The FTC weighs in on customer data privacy
    Whatever happened to customer journey orchestration?
    The latest jobs in martech
    B2B buyers are much more concerned about a company’s values than the general public

About The Author

Tim Peterson
Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands' early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo's and Google's search designs and examine the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.

Related Topics

Performance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Tracking Growth From Organic Search

Beyond the Buzzword: Transform Digitally to Drive Organic & SEO Growth

Leap or Linger: Determining Which Ad Platforms to Test for Your B2B Brand

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise Marketing Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

The CMO’s Formula To 3x Your Digital Marketing Campaign Results

See More Whitepapers
Search Our Site

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.