Meta develops AI targeting system to show housing ads to wider range of users
- Reference: 1673440214
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/11/meta_ai_advertising_doj/
- Source link:
Federal prosecutors accused Meta of violating the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which prohibits landlords from selling, renting, or advertising their properties to people or evicting tenants based on their race, religion, sex, status, or disability. The social media giant allegedly targeted housing adverts to people from specific demographics, and unfairly hid them from users that didn't fit the same criteria.
Meta [1]agreed to pay the $115,054 fine and settle the case last year in June. The deal also ensured the company had to overhaul its ad targeting system and make it fairer. Now, Meta has scrapped its previous " [2]Lookalike Audience " or "Special Ad Audience" tool that used machine learning methods to group users with common backgrounds, allowing advertisers to automatically target specific audiences.
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It has replaced it with the Variance Reduction System (VRS), a reinforcement learning-based system that places adverts to a wider range of users by tweaking the advert bidding process.
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"The VRS is an offline reinforcement learning framework with the explicit goal of minimizing the variance in number of ad views between people who have seen the ad and the broader eligible audience of people who could have seen the ad," [6]explained Miranda Bogen, policy manager, Responsible AI at Meta.
The system starts by measuring the distribution of users from different ages, genders, and ethnicities to whom an advertiser wants to show their ad. It then looks at the ad impressions from people that have been served the advert, and compares it with initial distribution to see what types of users should see the ad but haven't yet. VRS then adjusts various factors that control the value of adverts in the bidding process, swaying advertisers to buy ad spaces displaying them to different audiences.
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"The VRS remeasures the audience's demographic distribution and updates the pacing of ads throughout the campaign, working to reduce variance between the audiences," said Bogen.
"When there's a new chance to show someone an ad, the system uses the latest demographic measurements, along with limited information about that person, to determine how to best adjust the pacing of the bid in order to encourage the ad to be distributed to an audience that more closely reflects the ad's eligible targeted audience."
That way, online adverts are more likely to be shown to a broader range of users and reduces the likelihood of discrimination, it's hoped. Meta is implementing VRS for housing advertisements to start with, and will slowly expand it to support employment and credit ads in the US next year.
[8]US schools sue Meta, Google and friends over 'youth mental health crisis'
[9]US Supremes deny Pegasus spyware maker's immunity claim
[10]Ireland fines Meta $414m for using personal data without asking
[11]Some engineers are being paid between $250k and $1m, says salary survey
"This development marks a pivotal step in the Justice Department's efforts to hold Meta accountable for unlawful algorithmic bias and discriminatory ad delivery on its platforms," assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, [12]said in a statement.
"The Justice Department will continue to hold Meta accountable by ensuring the Variance Reduction System addresses and eliminates discriminatory delivery of advertisements on its platforms. Federal monitoring of Meta should send a strong signal to other tech companies that they too will be held accountable for failing to address algorithmic discrimination that runs afoul of our civil rights laws," she concluded. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/23/meta_settles_lawsuit_adverts/
[2] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2480866008855541
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y77rL1eFiq6RTwSi2P-NwgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y77rL1eFiq6RTwSi2P-NwgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y77rL1eFiq6RTwSi2P-NwgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://ai.facebook.com/blog/advertising-fairness-variance-reduction-system-vrs/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y77rL1eFiq6RTwSi2P-NwgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/10/schools_sue_meta_google/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/supreme_court_pegasus_spyware/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/meta_fined_390_for_using/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/tech_salary_survey/
[12] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-meta-platforms-inc-reach-key-agreement-they-implement-groundbreaking
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The system starts by measuring the distribution of users from different ages, genders, and ethnicities to whom an advertiser wants to show their ad...
That way, online adverts are more likely to be shown to a broader range of users and reduces the likelihood of discrimination, it's hoped.
You kow, it would be quicker to show the ads to everyone so nobody can complain of being discriminated.
Where's the mystical woo in that that Facebook can charge for?
Erm
I thought the point of targeted adverts is to try and target your market. For example a fishing magazine not being the first choice for where to buy luxury curtains. And since people are sick of being bombarded with adverts surely the idea of targeting the right advert to those more likely interested in it would be the go to approach.
I guess the regulators disagree and need to be bombarded with every advert available for absolutely everything.
This is the fundamental flaw with AI
You're taking a system based on widespread data collection and tweaking its outcome based on your prejudices, claiming all the time that it is prejudiced. That's not going to end well -- I've seen the demands made that OpenAI censors its answers based on our perception of what society should be rather than what it is.
I'm not advocating discrimination, just noting that Fascebook was merely reflecting the state of society today. Advertisers tend to be only interested in money so if the results of any kind of ranking system show a bias towards a particular group then its because this group has shown the best yield. Pushing advertisements at a wider group to redress some kind of imbalance won't actually alter the underlying fact, it merely hides it. Papers over the cracks.
(These systems aren't that good, anyway. I've been deemed a customer for funeral services in Florida and so 'the system' serves me up advertisements in Spanish. I live thousands of miles away, I have no intention of going anywhere near Florida. But something triggered an algorithm somewhere.)
LEAVE US ALONE!!
Every opportunity to exploit us with BS adverts, sick of being treated like a lab rat! Think I'll get one of these masks to the right here, block out all the BS I see online and on TV!