Coronavirus: Facebook stops advertisers from targeting users interested in 'pseudoscience' in bid to stop misinformation

Facebook has stopped advertisers from targeting people interested in "pseudoscience" as it attempts to crack down on coronavirus misinformation. Until this week, companies were able to use the interest to target particular audiences. But the company has now paused the availability of that and some other categories as it deals with false stories around the pandemic. Other topics including "conspiracy theory" appear to have disappeared from the list, and a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that other categories were being hidden as it evaluates the different audience categories. The removal came after a report that demonstrated it was possible to pick people interested in "pseudoscience" for targeting with particular posts, presumably allowing them to be targeted with false or misleading information.