FB sorry for ‘White supremacy’ ad

SAN FRANCISCO: Social networking giant Facebook has apologised after letting an ad campaign target its users interested in “White genocide conspiracy theory”. News site The Intercept had no trouble in launching the campaign just a few days after conspiracy theory about external forces trying to exterminate the White race purportedly inspired the man who killed 11 Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue last week.

Earlier this week, The Intercept was able to select “white genocide conspiracy theory” as a pre-defined “detailed targeting” criterion on the social network to promote two articles to an interest group.

The interest group, FB said, comprised 168,000 users “who have expressed an interest or like pages related to White genocide conspiracy theory”. The ad, labelled provocatively as “White Supremacy-Test” was approved by a member of Facebook’s ad wing, the report said. After the site contacted FB for comment, spokesperson Joe Osborne told The Intercept the “White genocide conspiracy theory” category had been “generated through a mix of automated and human reviews, but any new interests are ultimately approved by people”.

“This targeting option has been removed, and we’ve taken down the ads. It’s against our ad principles and never should have been in our system to begin with. We deeply apologise for this error,” Osborne said.