Facebook made it known that they will no longer allow advertisers that target users by their race, in which advertisers tend to exclude specific racial and ethnic groups when posting ads related to credit, employment and housing.

Federal lawmakers have been banging up Facebook for allowing advertisers to exclude racial and ethnic groups when posting housing ads, such as a house for sale or apartment for rent. Pro Publica, a New York based non-profit corporation, shed light on the issue when it placed an ad for a housing-related event that excluded Asian Americans, Hispanics and African Americans, NY Times has learned.

Facebook's vice president of U.S. public policy, Erin Egan, told USA TODAY that they are going to shut down, actually prohibit, the use of ethnic affinity marketing for advertisements that the social network company identify as offering housing, credit and employment.

Egan said that their social network company will also require advertisers to affirm that they will not place discriminatory ads on their social media site, and will provide educational materials to make it easier for advertisers to understand their obligations.

Anyway, the policy changes on Facebook came after the discussions with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois, the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as California Representative Linda Sanchez and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

In spite of that, Facebook said in a statement that policymakers and civil rights leaders have squeezed out their concerns regarding advertisers could misuse some aspects of the company's affinity marketing segments. Particularly, they have raised the possibility that some advertisers might use these segments to post some ads that discriminate people, News Room reported.

That being the case, Facebook's ethnic marketing tool changes will probably deal with a difficult blow to the social network company's superior ad-targeting capabilities, especially in the face of its competitors, from the likes of Twitter, Snapchat and Google.

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