(credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

“We are going to turn off, actually prohibit, the use of ethnic affinity marketing for ads that we identify as offering housing, employment, and credit,” Erin Egan, Facebook’s vice president of US public policy, told USA Today.

Facebook has been advertising “ethnic affinity” marketing as a way to reach a multicultural audience since at least 2015. But the way those features could be combined with ads for legally sensitive areas like jobs and housing was widely publicized last month when Pro Publica published an article about the practice. Pro Publica reporters bought their own housing ad targeting people who were house hunting, but the organization excluded anyone who had an “affinity” for African American, Asian American, or Hispanic people.