She Lost Her Pregnancy, Says Meta Is Making It Worse

Women who have experienced pregnancy loss say Facebook's ad algorithms are failing them at vulnerable moments. After losing her baby, Hayley turned to online forums for support, only to be met with a stream of ads for maternity wear and baby products—ads she couldn't easily block. While the BBC reports Facebook lets users hide ads on topics like chocolate and wrestling, pregnancy isn't on the list. Even after marking some baby-related ads as spam, Hayley kept seeing them for weeks.

Former Meta executive Arturo Bejar, who has raised concerns about Meta and safety before Congress, says these ad controls are largely superficial. According to Bejar, the "mark as spam" button is often ignored behind the scenes. "We found that in some cases, help reports were getting thrown out because there were too many of them." Meta says it is working to improve the accuracy and sensitivity of ad targeting, acknowledging its system isn't perfect. The company encourages users to use the opt-out feature when possible.