Facebook will ban targeting by age and gender to developers, HR officers and banks

Facebook will ban the targeting of ads for housing, work and financial services by gender and age - this is how the company will fight discrimination against social network users in advertising after accusations from journalists and public organizations. Facebook has already banned settings based on nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. The changes will affect not only the United States, but also all countries in which Facebook is present.

More. A 2017 ProPublica and The New York Times investigative report found that age and gender targeting options were most frequently used by recruiting companies, real estate agents and banks.

Advertisers from these sectors will now have to ensure that their ads comply with anti-discrimination laws, and Facebook will verify compliance with this requirement.

“We believe that this settlement will be a historic step and will help ensure that this type of discriminatory action does not occur,” said Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the company. Facebook said it will continue to work with public organizations that have filed a lawsuit against the company for discrimination.

Context. Facebook has paid $5 million to settle three lawsuits alleging discrimination against women in job ads.

Facebook is trying to keep users in the face of audience loss in developed countries. Millions of American users have left the social network, according to a recently published study by Edison Research. There are 15 million fewer Americans using Facebook now than in 2017. social media worldwide . use More than 2 billion people

on the social network In early March, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg published a policy article , in which he admitted that most of his audience needed not a market square (classic social network), but a private conversation room (secure messenger). In it, he also noted that users should be comfortable using social networks and comfortable being themselves in them. We wrote in detail about Zuckerberg's article here .