Meta is following through on its promise to decrease ad discrimination via technology. In the United States, the business is introducing a Variance Reduction System (VRS) to guarantee that the actual audience for an ad more closely matches the qualifying target population — that is, it should not lean unjustly toward specific ethnic groups. After a sufficient number of individuals have seen an advertisement, a machine learning system compares the aggregate demographics of viewers to those the marketers planned to attract. It then modifies the ad’s auction value (the possibility of seeing the ad) to show it more or less often to certain groups.
VRS continues to function during the duration of an advertisement. And, sure, Meta is aware of the privacy concerns. It emphasises that the technology is unable to determine an individual’s age, gender, or approximate ethnicity. Differential privacy technology also puts “noise” into the AI, preventing it from learning individual demographic information over time.
The anti-discrimination strategy will be used first in the housing advertisements that generated the settlement. According to Meta, VRS will reach credit and employment advertisements across the nation during the next year.
The feature is the result of almost a year of collaboration between the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2019, Meta (formerly Facebook) was accused of promoting housing discrimination by allowing advertisers to omit specific demographics, including those covered by the Fair Housing Act. In a settlement reached in June 2022, the social media giant agreed to adopt VRS while also discontinuing the “Special Ad Audience” feature, the algorithm of which allegedly contributed to prejudice. In response to another complaint, Meta already curtailed ad targeting in 2019.
Meta is not alone in its efforts to restrict racist advertisements. Beginning in 2020, Google will prohibit marketers from targeting credit, housing, and employment advertising. However, the technology employed to combat prejudice is very new. It won’t be shocking if other internet providers deploy their own VRS-like systems if Meta’s AI proves successful.
