Sheryl Sandberg 'disgusted' by anti-Semitic ad buys, wants to end them

Yet another problem the social media giant has had to address.
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
Sheryl Sandberg 'disgusted' by anti-Semitic ad buys, wants to end them
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wants you to know she's mad about those anti-Semitic Facebook ad buys, too Credit: Kammerer Bernd/action press/REX/Shutterstock

A week after it was revealed that Facebook allowed ad buys targeted to anti-Semitic causes, including "Jew haters," Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has responded to the controversy and offered some potential solutions for the social media platform.

Sandberg's response came in the form of -- what else? -- a lengthy Facebook post.

Saying the discovery left her "disgusted and disappointed," Sandberg got personal in addressing the issue:

Hate has no place on Facebook – and as a Jew, as a mother, and as a human being, I know the damage that can come from hate. The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part.

After a defense of the benefits of the targeted ad system and how these particular perps exploited the system, Sandberg offered 3 next steps: "clarifying our advertising policies and tightening our enforcement processes"; "more human review and oversight to our automated processes"; and working on a program that she hopes will lead more people to report these abuses to the company.

The exploitation was brought to light by ProPublica and Facebook has been trying to get out from under this controversy while dealing with a separate issue involving Russians purchasing $100,000 in political ads.

It's just one of many issues the social media giant has been juggling in the last year or so which, suffice it to say, leaves Sandberg and the Facebook crew with even more work to do in terms of reputation repair.

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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