Meta said on Tuesday that it plans to remove detailed ad targeting options related to “sensitive” topics, such as ads based on interactions with content such as race, health, religious customs, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. The company recently changed its name to Meta, and most of its revenue comes from digital advertising. In recent years, it has been strictly reviewing its advertising targeting capabilities and rules. In a blog post, Meta gave examples of positioning categories that are no longer allowed on its platform, such as “lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “LGBT culture”, “Jewish holidays” or political beliefs and social issues. The company stated that this change will begin on January 19, 2022.

The company has been criticized for its micro-targeting capabilities, including abusing advertisers to discriminate or target disadvantaged groups. In 2019, it agreed to make changes to its advertising platform as part of addressing housing discrimination. The company’s vice president of advertising product marketing, Graham Mudd, said in a post: “We have heard experts worry that such targeting options may lead to a negative experience for people in underrepresented groups.

Way to use.” Its tailor-made advertising features are used by a wide range of advertisers, including political activities and social issue groups and enterprises. “The decision to remove these detailed targeting options is not easy, and we know that this change may have a negative impact on certain businesses and organizations,” Mudd said in the post, adding that some advertising partners were worried that they would not be able to use these ads to Produce positive social changes.

Advertisers on the Meta platform can still target audiences by location, use their own customer lists, reach out to custom audiences that interact with their content, and send ads to people with similar characteristics to those users.

This move marks a key change in the company’s social and political advertising methods, although it is not expected to have a significant financial impact. For example, CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimated in 2019 that politicians’ ads will account for less than 0.5% of Meta’s 2020 revenue.

News Source : Gadgets 360