[diogenes-pithos]

I think it'd be helpful for discussion to include Signal's dispute of Facebook's disputation of the story in your comment:

> We absolutely did try to run these. The ads were rejected, and Facebook disabled our ad account. These are real screenshots, as Facebook should know.

[cmeacham98]

Are there other screenshots I'm not aware of that weren't posted on the Signal blog (as their response uses the plural)?

The only screenshot I can find shows a disabled account (not any rejected ads), and also seems to support Facebook's side of the story (you can see a banner in the background saying something about their "current balance", which would imply what Facebook said was true).

[jasonlotito]

Facebook admits that they would have rejected a couple of the ads. See the grand-parents link.

[cmeacham98]

Facebook claims it would have rejected ads that "assert that you have a specific medical condition or sexual orientation", which seems like a fair/reasonable policy to me, and accepted the others.

[pannSun]

To be clear, the "reasonable policy" is "don't let your ads reveal how invasive our spying is"?

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Facebook claims it would have rejected ads that "assert that you have a specific medical condition or sexual orientation"

If I'm reading the picture correctly: Facebook collects and processes data about our medical conditions and sexual orientation. We've seen how FB allows ads targeting those metrics to be constructed - but FB also indicates it might get grumpy if those ads are posted.

Further, FB is not revealing who it makes that data available to or even explaining why it collect+processes our Med and SO data in the first place.

Does anything I've said here seem unlikely?

[cmeacham98]

Your line of reasoning would make a lot of sense if we ignore the fact that Facebook (at least claims they) would allow the other ads.

It seems likely to me that rather than wanting to hide these specific categories (but be willing to expose every other type of data collection they do on you), that Facebook doesn't allow these specific two categories because of the significant negative social/legal consequences if they get them wrong.

They are very likely trying to avoid gay users getting an ad that says "You're straight, join my Straight only dating site" or an ad incorrectly diagnosing users with a disease they don't have.

[Aissen]

The article cites Signal's response, but does not link to the tweet, that contains one additional screenshot: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1389732689096450048h (nothing new though)

[eagleinparadise]

You should record a loom and run the ads. Pretty hard to dispute hard video evidence.