Facebook stops advertisers illegally discriminating by race

Social network will still allow targeting based on 'ethnic affinity' of users in domains other than housing, employment and credit

Facebook has updated its advertising policies to ban discrimination based on a number of personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age.

Accompanying the new policies is a section aimed at educating advertisers about the extent to which ad targeting is allowed on the social network, both in terms of Facebook's own policies and applicable national laws.