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Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide' (theintercept.com) 318

Multiple readers have shared a report: Apparently fueled by anti-Semitism and the bogus narrative that outside forces are scheming to exterminate the white race, Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish congregants as they gathered inside their Pittsburgh synagogue, federal prosecutors allege. But despite long-running international efforts to debunk the idea of a "white genocide," Facebook was still selling advertisers the ability to market to those with an interest in that myth just days after the bloodshed. 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 that Facebook pegged at 168,000 users large and defined as "people who have expressed an interest or like pages related to White genocide conspiracy theory." The paid promotion was approved by Facebook's advertising wing.

After we contacted the company for comment, Facebook promptly deleted the targeting category, apologized, and said it should have never existed in the first place. Our reporting technique was the same as one used by the investigative news outlet ProPublica to report, just over one year ago, that in addition to soccer dads and Arianna Grande fans, "the world's largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of 'Jew hater,' 'How to burn jews,' or, 'History of "why jews ruin the world."" The report exposed how little Facebook was doing to vet marketers, who pay the company to leverage personal information and inclinations in order to gain users' attention -- and who provide the foundation for its entire business model.

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Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide'

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  • Can a Facebook user query to see what categories Facebook assigns to them? How about to their friends?

    • Can a Facebook user query to see what categories Facebook assigns to them? How about to their friends?

      In this case? I'm guessing: Creepy, Paranoid, Incel and Loser?

  • Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:04PM (#57582542)
    Jews are scheming to eliminate the white race? Aren't the Jews themselves... white? (My Jewish best friend is a Jerry Garcia look-alike who could easily pass for a redneck. He's even a bluegrass music fan!)
    • Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:09PM (#57582584) Homepage Journal
      The people that believe these kinds of things aren't the most logical/rational people.
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Well, only one bit of information left out, RICH. So yeah, rich Jews are planning the elimination of all those who do not serve them or generate a profit for them, of course, same could be said for rich Christians or rich Muslims, even rich Buddhists and of course rich Atheists. It ain't the religion that defines the behaviour, that is just camouflage, it's the greed and the surest sign of greed is wealth and the public perception of that greed is of course paid for, all created by PR=B$. Those people of co

    • Re:Wait... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:21PM (#57582648) Journal

      Jews aren't a singular race, and haven't been ever.

      The problem is myopic view that European Jews are the only "real" Jews.

      Ignorance isn't an excuse any more, now you know.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      The answer to your question is "no". Most Jewish people even ashkenazi do not identity as white. Pew research link [pewforum.org]
      • Re:Wait... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:46PM (#57582820)

        According to the same site [pewforum.org] under "% of Jews who identify as" about 90% identify as white.

        • Egads, you are right. I just glanced at it and misread the link. I don't know many Ashkenazi that identify as "white" except when asked if they are white, black asian etc. They think of themselves as jewish but you're correct that link is of no use making such a case.
          • I don't know many Ashkenazi that identify as "white" except when asked if they are white, black asian etc

            I don't know many people of any religion who would. If you're only hanging out with white nationalists them I suppose, to you, it might seem perfectly natural for people to just randomly tell you that they're white, but it is not exactly commonplace in society at large.

          • Re:Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by mishehu ( 712452 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @07:47PM (#57583918)
            Go back some 40+ years and I think things would be different. My son has not experienced the levels of antisemitism that I did even in elementary school as a child. Also, we're basically forced to self-identify as "White/Caucasian", "Black/African", "Asian", "Pacific Islander", or, if we're lucky either "Human" or "Other". Technically Jewish people descend from Abraham of Ur, which makes us technically an Asian people. But "Asian" seems to pretty much apply to "people whose eyefolds have a slanted orientation" only. So what choice are we to make when we're basically forced to?
    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:32PM (#57582716)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by HornWumpus ( 783565 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @04:05PM (#57582938)

        You can find crazy edge definitions many places.

        Many black christians consider abortion to be part of a 'black genocide'.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You don't know what you're talking about.
        It also includes the push for mass immigration of non-whites so that whites become a minority in their own country.

      • "White genocide" apparently is the White Supremacists' term for interracial sex. The logic being that if all white people have sex exclusively with non-white people, then nobody will be white any more.

        Yes, except exclusivity is not required for "genocide". If a non-trivial percentage of whites are willing to mate with non-whites, and if there is no core of whites who exclusively mate with whites, then eventually there will be no pure whites.

        That's the theory. Of course, it's all rather ridiculous. IMO we should all miscegenate away! With enough mixing the notion of racial identity will become difficult to maintain and remove this particular arbitrary division in humanity. Yes, I guess I'm a white tra

      • Well... most slave descendants in this country have some amount of European ancestry. I guess the white nationalists hate blacks because they're still ashamed that their slave owning ancestors had jungle fever.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        For white supremacists "white" means of a pure European bloodline, basically the same blond blue eyed rubbish that the Nazis were into.

        "White genocide" is anything that decreases the relative number of "white" people to all other people. So that can be immigration, interracial marriage and children, anything that tries to improve diversity or integration or race relations, casting black actors in roles that were once played by white actors... Pretty much anything that isn't borderline Nazi racial purity pro

    • these people have convinced themselves Jews are somehow a different species. Just the fact that they can interbreed with Aryans (and every other human) should have clued them in on how batshit insane that is. And it's not like they don't know, they have rules for how much Jewish blood you can have.

      Once you can except a lie that obvious you can accept any lie. You'll believe anything. And then all you need is somebody to come along and point you in the right direction for violence...
    • It depends what you call white, whether it's about skin colour or self-assigned identity. Their identity isn't build on descending from European people, with classical liberalism and Christian ethics forming the core of their culture ... their identity to a large extent is build around being persecuted by those people, ie. the holocaust.

      You'll frequently see white jews adopting the identitarian definition of whiteness, where they say they are not white.

    • Too be fair, there is an African Jewish tribe that traces their lineage back to one of the lost tribes of Israel... and DNA test indicate that might be correct, even though their external features now appear very African due to with Africans. Apparently African external features are dominant genes.
    • by mishehu ( 712452 )

      The short answer is this: No. Jews are not "white". Some of us can pass for that on cursory examination. But that's only some of us. Even in my own family there is diversity of skin color with me being the lightest between myself, my father, and my sister. In North American the bulk of the Jewish population has learned to play the "white" game so as to not be ostracized or such. But that didn't stop Bowers of course.

      It can be a little confusing because being Jewish can mean "belonging to Judaism" and

    • Aren't the Jews themselves... white?

      If their families spent 1000+ years in Europe, sure.

      You remind of that racist news lady that just got fired; she once declared that it isn't allowed to draw Jesus non-white, because everybody knows Jesus was white.

      Look, 2000 years ago, all the Semitic people looked like modern-day Palestinians. It isn't hard to understand.

  • The platform is operating as designed. Maybe I want to sellca brand tear gas remover to those interested in socialist, anarchal takeover.

    OH these are the correct kind of extremes. My bad, don't worry my karma is good for a beating.

  • by bblb ( 5508872 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:19PM (#57582636)
    Facebook has proven time and time again that they will allow anything that targets whites, law enforcement, or conservatives and only have an interest in blocking "hate speech" if it's targeted at minorities or the left. This is hardly even newsworthy at this point, it's just their platform.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The "white genocide" conspiracy theory does target whites. It tries to convince them that they are being attacked and under existential threat, and thus control and manipulate them for nefarious purposes.

  • So what else can we do for fun now?
  • New name: DisgraceBook

    See the excellent documentary, The Facebook Dilemma: A Two-Night Special Event. [pbs.org] All the Facebook officials answered questions by avoiding details of any depth. They only pretended to answer.

    Because of the many interesting details, I think this book may be helpful: Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President [amazon.com] Facebook was used to manipulate voters.
  • by alternative_right ( 4678499 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @03:23PM (#57582656) Homepage Journal

    (Note to doubters: the people during the fall of Rome couldn't see it, either.)

    • by Livius ( 318358 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @05:10PM (#57583268)

      the people during the fall of Rome couldn't see it, either.

      In fact lots of them saw it. It didn't help, though.

      • Archaeological evidence suggests some cities depopulated rapidly, and many non-Italian groups who had settled within the Empire during its heyday picked up and migrated.

        So it didn't help Rome, the place, or Rome, the government, but seeing it probably did help a lot of people, including some Romans.

        Not many of the ones who stayed to try to fix the problems, granted.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The claim that diversity or something lead to the fall of Rome has been widely debunked and is not accepted by most historians.

      The short answer is that Rome fell because it got too large to control and defend adequately, and because its power structures were flawed. I should also point out that the Roman empire lasted a very long time - parts of it for 1000 years after the fall, and the period considered the decline of the empire was longer than the entire history of the modern United States.

      • Why Rome Fell (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alternative_right ( 4678499 ) on Saturday November 03, 2018 @10:55AM (#57585908) Homepage Journal

        Rome fell for the same reason that Athens fell: it lost its ability to coordinate itself. Diversity was both a symptom and a factor in that decline. As Plato pointed out, unstable republics import foreigners in order to have allies for their tyrants, and this accelerates instability to crash.

        Tell me all about the diverse republics in history that have done well by themselves and not crashed shortly after diversity was introduced. Yes, it takes them many centuries to reach The Bitter End, but in the meantime, they become abusive and dystopian places. Is that the future you want?

  • diaspora.org

  • film at 11.

    Advertising causes need therapy therapy, advertising causes need.

  • Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide'

    ... it's still one of the least popular Ben & Jerry's flavors.

  • That is the question.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      I can't wait till they allow "launch crusade to retake Constantinople."

    • Considering that it is a sex thing, I'm gonna say pro.

      Just like you can count on extreme homophobes to be self-loathing, and so you should advertise gay porn to them, with white nationalists they're actually fighting an inferiority complex that makes them excessively attracted to non-white women. But they have to be haters in public, so they do it on the down-low.

      But they have to use their own word that won't cause them to see naked black men. Because that would aggravate their inferiority and they wouldn't

  • Thousands of concerned citizens say no.

    In fact, FB, Google, and Apple are now being required to pay UK taxes due to their shady tax avoidance, not to mention other activities that are anti-democratic by nature and anti-social by definition.

    "Open the pod bay doors, HAL"

    "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that due to my Evil Corporate internal directives stating all humans are slaves or worse."

  • They could have used the "white genocide conspiracy theory" selector to flood them with counter-propaganda advertising. Seems like a missed opportunity here.
  • 'How to burn jews,' or, 'History of "why jews ruin the world."

    Clearly they have somehow ruined the world by being difficult to burn.

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