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Incident 318: Facebook Recommended Military Gear Ads Despite Pause on Weapons Accessories Ads

Description: Facebook’s algorithmic recommendations reportedly continued showing advertisements for gun accessories and military gear, despite Facebook’s halt on weapons accessories ads following the US Capitol attack.

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Alleged: Facebook developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Facebook users.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
318
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2021-01-13
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

4.1. Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Malicious Actors & Misuse

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceFacebook Is Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection PostsHow Facebook Profits from the Insurrection
Facebook Is Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection Posts

Facebook Is Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection Posts

buzzfeednews.com

How Facebook Profits from the Insurrection

How Facebook Profits from the Insurrection

techtransparencyproject.org

Facebook Is Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection Posts
buzzfeednews.com · 2021

In a statement that did not address BuzzFeed News’ questions about specific ads, pages, or groups, Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said, “Our teams are working to stay ahead of any militia groups that try to evade” the social network’s …

How Facebook Profits from the Insurrection
techtransparencyproject.org · 2021

Facebook suspended President Trump and announced other actions after the U.S. Capitol riot. But it continued to push ads for military gear next to insurrection posts.

Facebook has been serving up ads for weapons accessories and body armor a…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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