Only on CBS 2: User raises awareness of targeted adult ads on Facebook
CHICAGO (CBS) – If you're a Facebook user you know that some of those targeted ads that show up on your feed can resemble things that you've searched previously.
But a Northwest Indiana man reached out to us when he saw an ad that wasn't for anything he says he was looking at.
So how did ads for very adult contact show up as he scrolled? CBS 2's Marie Saavedra found out.
We caught up with Rick from Northwest Indiana who prefers we only use his first name and voice to hear about something that stopped him in his tracks.
"I believe this was about three weeks ago or so and I was just scrolling through."
Facebook like most normal people would be doing.
Marie: "And tell me what you saw."
Rick: "There was an add that popped up and it had nudity and pornographic images in it."
Explicit photos.
"It's not anything that I was researching, it wasn't products I was looking at," he said.
Right in his feed.
Rick says he saw two separate ads. Both claim to be sponsored, both marketing hemp oil to fight erectile dysfunction.
Marie: "What was your first thought when you saw these images?"
Rick: "An advertiser is going to slip through the cracks of their algorithm and
they're going to put some stuff on there and it's not going to be appropriate.
Marie: "You think that's what happened in this case?"
Rick: "I believe so."
Rick says he reported it to Facebook within the app, then he posted it to his own page to warn his friends. He admits it wasn't the brightest idea, and that lead to his account being restricted for six days.
Marie: "I know your intent was just to alert and not to obviously spread this material."
Rick: "Well it's frustrating period for me."
A look at fakebook's advertising policies shows adult products and adult content is prohibited, so we reached out to parent company Meta. It confirmed that in recent weeks hackers got into the site's system, saying in a statement, "After receiving reports of inappropriate content showing up in ads, we investigated and resolved the issue."
The company said it worked to reinstate accounts like Rick's that were restricted, and disable the ones connected to the explicit photos. Still, even Meta admits this can be a bit of 'whack-a-mole' with hackers always targeting the tech giant. So, consider this a warning of what's possible.
Marie: "Why was it important for you to share this story and get the word out about how this happened?"
Rick: "It's to raise awareness of the situation because, you know, obviously something slipped through the cracks and it's nothing children need to be exposed to by any means."
We asked Meta what users should do if you see anything like this in your feed. They said go to the 'Report A Problem' section of the Facebook app to notify them immediately. Meta says they try their best to take down content like that ASAP.