BBC Runs Ads Targeting Homophobes and Nazis, Twitter Allows it

Twitter has apologized after admitting it allowed advertisers to target hate groups.

An investigation by BBC revealed it was possible to advertise directly to homophobic, neo-Nazi or white supremacist Twitter users.

Like most big social media platforms, Twitter collects extensive data on its users based on things they post, like, watch, retweet and reply to. This allows advertisers to only have their ads shown to people likely interested in their product.

What the BBC did was create ads targeted at groups who expressed interest in terms such as "transphobic", "anti-gay" and "islamophobic" -- and they were all allowed to run.

Using the site's ads tool, it created a generic advertisement that said "Happy New Year!" -- It then selected the group it wished to target with its ad: "neo-Nazis"

Twitter's ad tool boasted it could reach a potential UK audience of 67,000 to 81,000 people.

They retried the experiment several times, using a different hate word. Each time Twitter said the ads were pending review, before each was approved and allowed to run.

The ads only came down when BBC cancelled them itself after a few hours.

In the end, 37 users saw the neo-Nazi add, two of them even clicked on the link (it redirected to a news article about memes). Running the ad cost £3.84 ($5).

They also ran the same advert, this time targeting 13 to 24-year-olds using the keywords "anorexic", "bulimic", "anorexia" and "bulimia". Twitter boasted a potential audience of 20,000 people.

This post was seen by 255 users, and 14 people clicked on the link before the BBC stopped it.

Twitter apologized for allowing the ads to run, claiming it was an "error".

"[Our] preventative measures include banning certain sensitive or discriminatory terms, which we update on a continuous basis," it said in a statement. "In this instance, some of these terms were permitted for targeting purposes. This was an error."

"We're very sorry this happened and as soon as we were made aware of the issue, we rectified it. We continue to enforce our ads policies, including restricting the promotion of content in a wide range of areas, including inappropriate content targeting minors."