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Incident 380: Facebook's Auto-Generated Targeting Ad Categories Contained Anti-Semitic Options

Description: Facebook's automated advertising categories generated using users' declared interests contained anti-Semitic categories such as "Jew hater" and "How to burn Jews" which were listed as fields of study.

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

Incident Stats

Incident ID
380
Report Count
5
Incident Date
2014-03-04
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
 

1.1. Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation

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. Discrimination and Toxicity

Entity

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

AI

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 Occurrence+4
Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’
Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’

Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’

propublica.org

Updates to Our Ad Targeting

Updates to Our Ad Targeting

about.fb.com

Facebook allowed advertisers to target 'Jew haters'

Facebook allowed advertisers to target 'Jew haters'

theguardian.com

Facebook's generation of 'Jew Hater' and other advertising categories prompts system inspection

Facebook's generation of 'Jew Hater' and other advertising categories prompts system inspection

techcrunch.com

Could Facebook Have Caught Its 'Jew Hater' Ad Targeting?

Could Facebook Have Caught Its 'Jew Hater' Ad Targeting?

theatlantic.com

Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’
propublica.org · 2017

Want to market Nazi memorabilia, or recruit marchers for a far-right rally? Facebook’s self-service ad-buying platform had the right audience for you. 

Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network ena…

Updates to Our Ad Targeting
about.fb.com · 2017

Facebook equips businesses with powerful ways to reach the right people with the right message. But there are restrictions on how audience targeting can be used on Facebook. Hate speech and discriminatory advertising have no place on our pl…

Facebook allowed advertisers to target 'Jew haters'
theguardian.com · 2017

Facebook has allowed advertisers 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.

Pr…

Facebook's generation of 'Jew Hater' and other advertising categories prompts system inspection
techcrunch.com · 2017

Update: Facebook has disabled using the user-reported fields in question in its advertising system until further notice.

Update 2: Google has disabled similar functionality in its own ad targeting system as well. (Details below)

Facebook au…

Could Facebook Have Caught Its 'Jew Hater' Ad Targeting?
theatlantic.com · 2017

Facebook lives and dies by its algorithms. They decide the order of posts in your News Feed, the ads you see when you open the app, and which which news topics are trending. Algorithms make its vast platform possible, and Facebook can often…

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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