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Across the FieldExplainer: Addressing Discrimination in Social Media Ad Delivery
Minimum Standards and an Evaluation of Meta's Variance Reduction System
Mitra Ebadolahi, with feedback from Aleksandra Korolova and Basileal Imana
ExplainerThis explainer is derived from a lengthier analysis, written by Princeton and USC researchers, of Meta’s recent efforts to mitigate discrimination in its delivery of certain economic opportunity ads on its social media platforms. That analysis was presented at the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT 2025).
Our goal is to illuminate key choice points in one effort to intervene in a discriminatory algorithmic system, so that legal advocates and enforcement agencies are better equipped to challenge and rectify such discrimination.
Read the explainer here.
Related Work
Upturn and Gupta Wessler represent Real Women in Trucking, requesting that the EEOC investigate Meta for systemic gender and age discrimination in advertising jobs on Facebook.
Across the FieldWe submitted testimony to DC Council on the Stop Discrimination by Algorithms Act of 2021.
Across the FieldOur empirical assessment of racial inference methodologies, using self-reported demographic information from Uber riders.
Across the FieldWe filed a legal brief arguing that Section 230 should not fully immunize Facebook’s Ad Platform from liability under a California antidiscrimination law.
Across the Field