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Is Facebook Ads Targeting Discriminatory?

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Facebook Ads have pinpoint-specific targeting technology, letting advertisers narrow their audience down by location, age, gender, political affiliation, and interests, which has led to some controversy. Most recently, Facebook is the subject of a lawsuit claiming the company has allowed illegally discriminatory ad campaigns to run on their platform. 

 

The Lawsuit

A federal district court in San Francisco is currently reviewing a complaint made by 54-year old Neuhtah Opiotennione, who is seeking a class-action suit against Facebook. Opiotennione is looking to highlight the discriminatory allowances still made by the company, specifically in ads for financial services. Credit opportunities are the one exception, as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) made exclusionary advertising on the basis of gender, age, race, religion, national origin, or marital status illegal for companies selling credit opportunities. 

This law was put into place to protect historically discriminated groups who have had trouble getting approved for loans due to their demographics. 

Opiotennione claims that this is still the case, regarding age and gender, as older women (Facebook defines “older” as over the age of 40) are often excluded from ads regarding financial services. 

 

The Basis

Until 1974, women were not allowed to open bank accounts or apply for credit cards in America. 1974 was also the year the ECOA was implemented. Before this, ads for loans and credit cards were targeted specifically to men, removing access to better loans for women and, more specifically, unmarried women. Older applicants continue to have trouble getting access to financial services, and often get excluded from financial advertisements.

Facebook has already received backlash for its advertising practices, forcing them to rename their “ethnic” demographics option to their “multicultural” demographics option. They eventually removed the option altogether for housing, credit, and jobs related ads. Following a different recent lawsuit, the company also removed large amounts of targeting options from financial and job opportunity advertisements, but still allows options for “people ages 24-40” and “men ages 20 and older.”

 

Facebook’s Response

Facebook has responded to the criticism by bringing up their past changes to targeting options and emphasizing their devotion to community inclusivity.  Whether they’ll change their guidelines is currently unknown.

JUUL is Pulling Its Fruit-Flavored Pods: Will it Help?

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In a recent strategic move, JUUL decided to pull all of its creme-, fruit-, and berry-flavored pods from shelves, leaving only original-, mint-, and menthol-flavored pods. The move was in response to the backlash the e-cigarette company has received due to its advertising campaigns that seemed to be aimed at minors. The impact the company has had on youth nicotine addiction is undeniable, with 20% of teens admitting to have vaped in the past 30 days, a 78% increase from 2017. Of the high schoolers who do vape, 68% use flavored products, and the flavored options are often listed in the top reasons why youths choose to use e-cigarettes.

 

Mint and Menthol Are Still Flavors

While pulling their sweeter flavors is commendable, the maintained presence of mint and menthol shows JUUL’s commitment to profits over people. The cut flavors, reminiscent of candies, are the common targets of lawsuits against the company. Due to the presence of menthol cigarettes on the nicotine market, keeping mint and menthol appears to be a balancing act between showing a willingness to be better, and maintaining stock prices. If JUUL can stay within the limits of what tobacco companies are allowed to produce, they can claim they are just as responsible for youth addiction as regular cigarettes. 

 

Tobacco Companies Shouldn’t be the Standard for Healthy Practices

Menthol cigarettes are the most addictive form of tobacco product and considered one of the more dangerous due to the amount of carbon monoxide inhaled by their users. Tobacco companies are already held to high marketing standards, standards e-cigarette companies have yet to be forced into. Cigarette packages are required to display large, unsettling photos of the effects of lunch and mouth cancer, with bold warnings about the effects of smoking and the highly addictive substance contained within. 

While e-cigarette and vaping products are also required to display addiction warnings, they have not been subjected to the same advertising bans or packaging requirements. For this reason, they are more liable for getting people addicted to menthol nicotine products that cigarette companies, who are unable to advertise.

 

JUUL Being Held Accountable

Multiple lawsuits against JUUL are currently underway, with class-action suits already underway. While it’s unlikely that they will have any traction for a number of years (if we’re using the tobacco industry as a comparison, it took over 40 years after proving the dangers of tobacco before states began allowing people to sue companies for Medicaid costs), each step is a step forward.