The general relationship between technology and racism is only part of the story. Meta has a poor relationship with Black users on its Facebook platform, and with Black women in particular.

In 2016, ProPublica reporters found that advertisers on Facebook’s advertising portal could exclude groups of people who see their ads based on the users’ race, or what Facebook called an “ethnic affinity.” This option received a lot of pushback because Facebook does not ask its users their race, which meant that users were being assigned an “ethnic affinity” based on their engagement on the platform, such as which pages and posts they liked.

In other words, Facebook was essentially racially profiling its users based on what they do and like on its platform, creating the opportunity for advertisers to discriminate against people based on their race. Facebook has since updated its ad targeting categories to no longer include “ethnic affinities.”

However, advertisers are still able to target people based on their presumed race through race proxies, which use combinations of users’ interests to infer races. For example, if an advertiser sees from Facebook data that you have expressed an interest in African American culture and the BET Awards, it can infer that you are Black and target you with ads for products it wants to market to Black people.

Worse, Facebook has frequently removed Black women’s comments that speak out against racism and sexism. Ironically, Black women’s comments about racism and sexism are being censored – colloquially known as getting zucked – for ostensibly violating Facebook’s policies against hate speech. This is part of a larger trend within online platforms of Black women being punished for voicing their concerns and demanding justice in digital spaces.

According to a recent Washington Post report, Facebook knew its algorithm was disproportionately harming Black users, but chose to do nothing.

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