Facebook Let Advertisers Target Audiences Interested In Nazis

According to the L.A Times, Facebook is now giving advertisers permission to reach users based on their anticipated interest in neo-Nazi musicians and Holocaust perpetrators.

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Coming up again under a lot of criticism, Facebook has got into big trouble with those audiences who it let advertisers target.

In a news reported by the L.A Times last Thursday, advertisers were allowed to target hundreds of thousands of audiences who were interested in Holocaust perpetrators, including Josef Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, and a neo-Nazi punk band called Skrewdriver.

Facebook stated that the audiences will be removed from its ads platform.

Facebook representative Joe Osborne said:

Searching for some of the mentioned keywords on the ad platform of Facebook, CNET found out that all of them have been completely removed.

However, some categories like NPD Group (a shortened form for the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany related to neo-Nazism and a U.S market research), nationalism, and flüchtlinge ("refugee" in German) wouldn't be removed. Facebook claimed that these advertising targeting options are not in violation of its policy.

This is not the first time this social network coming under heavy criticisms for what they allow to advertise. One of them was in 2017 when ProPublica found out that the platform was allowing advertisers to target discriminatory ads such as “How to burn Jews", or “Jews hater".

In response to the wave of opposition, Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook Chief Operating Officer, apologized for unanticipated functionality. She said:

She also stated that the social network was increasing not only enforcement against hateful ads but also oversight of the automated processes.