New Facebook agreement prevents ad discrimination on its platform

Facebook entered into a new agreement with Washington state forcing the social media giant to change its policies nationwide to prevent advertisers of housing, credit, employment, insurance and public accommodations from discriminating based on race, the state's Office of the Attorney General announced.

The details: An investigation by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson into Facebook found that advertisers were excluding people by race when using Facebook's a "multicultural affinity" category in its ad targeting tool. This new regulation removes that category from its exclusion tool on all advertisements.