QUACK MEDICINE

Facebook Let Advertisers Target Millions of Users Interested in ‘Pseudoscience,’ Says Report

After The Markup pointed out the issue to Facebook, the company hastily removed the option.

Facebook allowed advertisers to target and profit from 78 million users who the social-media company believed were interested in pseudoscience, according to a report from The Markup. Mark Zuckerberg has been keen to stress his company’s efforts to clamp down on misinformation about COVID-19, saying last week that it had pulled “hundreds of thousands” of misleading posts. But The Markup found that it was able to specifically target a database of users that Facebook believed was interested in “pseudoscience.” The Markup paid to advertise posts targeting those people on Facebook and Instagram—both of which were approved. After the nonprofit raised the issue with Facebook, company spokesperson Devon Kearns emailed to say it had eliminated the pseudoscience category.