The Guardian on Facebook, ads and antisemitism:

'Facebook has allowed advertising to target users interested in the topics of “Jew hater” and “How to burn Jews”, according to an investigation that adds to mounting criticisms of the way the company allows and profits from unethical ads.

ProPublica, an investigative news organization, reported on Thursday that the social network’s self-service ad-buying system allowed people to direct advertisements to nearly 2,300 users interested in several explicitly antisemitic subjects, including a category labeled “History of ‘why Jews ruin the world’”.

The journalists tested the legitimacy of the ad categories by paying $30 to target “promoted posts” to those specific groups. ProPublica said three ads were approved within 15 minutes. Facebook later took down the offensive categories after ProPublica contacted the company for comment.

Asked about ProPublica’s findings, Rob Leathern, product management director at Facebook, confirmed in a statement to the Guardian that it had “removed the associated targeting fields”, adding, “We know we have more work to do, so we’re also building new guardrails in our product and review processes to prevent other issues like this from happening in the future.”

A Facebook algorithm had created the antisemitic categories, and the company said it is considering changes to prevent this kind of problem.'

Read the article here.

Of course, blame the algorithm.

Before Christmas POTUS will have blamed the algorithm as well, and Clinton needless to say.