Facebook ran ads on searches for white supremacist groups, report finds

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

According to a report by the tech transparency project, Facebook served ads on searches related to white supremacist groups.

The report was first covered by The Washington Post. More than a third of the hate groups and dangerous organizations that researchers searched for had a presence on Facebook.

40 percent of the queries for the groups were for ads.

Two dozen of the white supremacist pages on Facebook were auto-generated by the social networking site. When users list interests, the platform creates pages. The issue of auto-generated white supremacist business pages was raised in a 2020 analysis by the tech transparency project The shorthand for a white supremacist gang is shorthand for the auto-generated pages.

In order to keep platforms safe, Meta invests in technology, staff, and research, as well as banning 270 groups that it deems to be white supremacist.

There was an issue where ads appeared in searches for terms related to banned organizations and we are working to fix it. We will continue to work with outside experts and organizations to remove violent, hate-filled, and terrorism related content from our platforms.

Advertisers boycotted Facebook in 2020 due to the platform's handling of hate speech and misinformation. The company's decisions resulted in serious setbacks for civil rights according to a report. Meta created a civil rights team in order to publish the status of actions and recommendations issued by auditors.