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Article snippet: For a sense of the dilemma confronting Facebook over its ad-targeting system, consider the following word: confederate. As of Wednesday, any prospective advertiser who typed that word into Facebook’s ad-targeting engine would be prompted to distribute their ad to a potential audience of more than four million users who had indicated an interest in the Confederate States of America, according to a test by The New York Times. There are plenty of Civil War buffs, of course, as well as students and scholars who have taken an academic interest in the Confederacy. Yet Facebook must also be mindful in today’s charged political atmosphere that some might use its targeting system to reach those who support the Confederacy as part of a white nationalist worldview. The social network recently grappled with revelations that advertisers were able to target Facebook users who used terms like “Jew hater” to describe themselves. But even after the company took steps to shut down those clearly offensive categories, other targeting terms remain that fall into a gray area. That includes categories like Confederate States, which are legitimate in principle but can be potentially problematic or misused in practice. It illustrates the blurry lines and policing challenge that confront Facebook in its ad targeting. And after a year in which the social network has accepted more responsibility to crack down on false or offensive material, and last week, when the company twice announced ne... Link to the full article to read more