Facebook Ends Ad Targeting By Sexual Orientation

For years, companies that offered services of specific interest to the LGBTQ community have been able to target their advertising to that particular audience utilizing the social media giant's "interested in" option.

But last month, Facebook quietly eliminated the ability to direct ads to folks based on sexual orientation. An exception, however, was made for dating apps to continue using that targeting option.

The change has impacted not only businesses that target the gay community, but important non-profit groups, like The Trevor Project, who offer life-saving services.

More from Buzzfeed:

Facebook stopped allowing “interested in” targeting as part of a major overhaul of its ad platform, which the company initiated after facing scrutiny from users and Congress last year. Bad actors have mercilessly exploited the platform in recent years, including Kremlin-linked trolls who used its targeting options to reach millions of Americans in an effort to divide the country during the 2016 election. And dozens of companies have used Facebook’s ad targeting options “to exclude older workers from job ads,” a recent Propublica investigation found.

Some organizations supporting the LGBT community aren’t opposed to Facebook's move. A spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) told BuzzFeed news that Facebook’s call to remove identity-based targeting while keeping interest-based targeting is “a fair compromise” that could prevent malicious uses of the ad platform. GLAAD, an advocacy organization, does not use the identity-based targeting, or have a need for it the way the Trevor Project does.

But Facebook’s reluctance to allow the Trevor Project to use the criteria, even as it’s made special accommodations for dating apps, has frustrated the nonprofit. It was using the targeting to promote a national mental health survey. “We have a very limited budget, and so now I have to throw money at the wind, hoping it’s going to reach the group I want to reach,” Stowell said.

Facebook says dating apps are allowed to continue using sexual orientation thanks to a "legacy requirement." The social media company added, however, that will end at the end of April.

Facebook banned ad discrimination by sexual orientation, yay! Right?

Except suicide prevention hotlines for LGBT youth can’t reach the people they need to, oops https://t.co/vfcdrxMqDJ

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) March 21, 2018

So Facebook no longer lets ads be targets by sexual orientation… except for dating ads. Of course they're not allowing non-profits like The Trevor Project…
gotta love facebook https://t.co/w7mrcwmyze pic.twitter.com/Wc3zigJyqC

— Pat Murray (@_patmurray) March 21, 2018

U.S. Census Reverses On Deleting Sexual Orientation Question

From the National LGBTQ Task Force:

Today, the US Census Bureau reversed a previous decision to exclude a question on sexual orientation from the Census Barriers, Attitudes and Motivators Study. In response to this victory, Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, issued the following statement.

“Make no mistake – public pressure on the Trump Administration works. It was messages from the members of the National LGBTQ Task Force and our partner organizations that compelled the Census Bureau to reverse their appalling decision to stop counting us.

“Thanks to the efforts of people across the country, the Census will continue collecting data about sexual orientation. We also will continue to push them to collect data about gender identity. Data about the LGBTQ community is absolutely crucial to ensuring that we are distributed the resources we need, that we are represented, and that the most vulnerable in our community are protected.”

Ninth Circuit Court will not review "heightened scrutiny" decision

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided it will not review an earlier decision which stated claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation required "heightened scrutiny."

The case, SmithKline Beecham v. Abbott Laboratories, centered around a dispute over HIV drugs, but the sexual orientation question came in to play when lawyers for Abbott removed a person from the jury because he is gay. The 9th Circuit had ruled that a lawyer could not do so; in reaching that ruling, though, the court first decided that sexual orientation claims should be subjected to heightened scrutiny.

While most laws that create groups or classifications must merely show there is a rational basis, or a legitimate reason, for the law, laws subjected to heightened scrutiny must show more. Some, like those that classify based on race, must show a compelling state interest for the classification, while others, like those based on sex, must show a lesser but still important state interest in doing so.

Abbott has stated it will not seek appeal.

While SCOTUS has not ruled specifically on the question of what level of scrutiny sexual orientation claims should receive, the 9th Circuit ruling referenced SCOTUS’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act saying “established a level of scrutiny for classifications based on sexual orientation that is unquestionably higher than rational basis review.”

The decision could affect challenges to same-sex marriage bans for those states within the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction.

The states in the 9th Circuit are Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

Read the entire decision here.

(via Buzzfeed)