Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit Facebook expanded its Inflammatory Ads policy (which goes beyond its Community Standards for hate speech) on June 26, 2020 to also prohibit ads stating that people represent a “threat to physical safety, health or survival” based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, serious disease or disability, or immigration status. Content that would be prohibited under this policy include claims that a racial group wants to “destroy us from within” or that an immigrant group “is infested with disease and therefore a threat to health and survival of our community.” The Auditors recognize this expansion as progress and a step in the right direction. The Auditors believe, however, that this expansion does not go far enough in that it is limited to physical threats; it still permits advertisers to run ads that paint minority groups as a threat to things like our culture or values (e.g., claiming a religious group poses a threat to the “American way of life.” The Auditors are concerned that allowing minority groups to be labeled as a threat to important values or ideals in targeted advertising can be equally dangerous and can lead to realworld harms, and the Auditors urge Facebook to continue to explore ways to expand this policy. As part of the same policy update, Facebook will also prohibit ads with statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal and cursing when directed at immigrants, asylum seekers, migrants, or refugees. (Such attacks are already prohibited based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, caste, gender identity, sexual orientation, and serious disease or disability.) The Auditors believe this is an important and necessary policy expansion, and are pleased that Facebook made the change. (iv) Don’t Vote Ads Policy & Don’t Participate in Census Ads Policy. Through the Audit, Facebook committed in 2019 to launching a “Don’t Vote Ads Policy”— a policy designed to prohibit ads targeting the US expressing suppressive messages encouraging people not to vote, including the types of demobilizing ads that foreign actors targeted to minority and other communities in 2016. Facebook launched that policy in September 2019. In keeping with its commitment to civic groups and the Census Bureau to treat the 2020 census like an election, Facebook also created a parallel policy prohibiting ads designed to suppress participation in the census through messages encouraging people not to fill it out. Facebook launched the parallel “Don’t Participate in Census Ads Policy” at the same time in September 2019. Together, these new ads policies prohibit “ads targeting the US that portray voting or census participation as useless or meaningless and/or advise users not to vote or participate in a census.” 2. Elections & Census Operations, Resources, and Planning After the 2018 midterm elections, civil rights groups were encouraged by the operational resources Facebook placed in its war room, but expressed great concern that the war room capability was created just 30 days prior to Election Day in 2018. With that concern in mind, the Auditors urged Facebook to take a more proactive posture for the 2020 elections, and in the June 2019 Audit Report, Facebook communicated its plan to stand up a dedicated team focused on US Elections and Census, supervised by a single manager in the US. (i) 24/7 Detection and Enforcement. In the lead up to the 2020 election and census, Facebook put dedicated teams and technology in place 24/7 to detect and enforce its rules against content that violates the voting and 23