Facebook first learned of my marriage to Andrea this past Sunday. That was the day Andrea finally joined the social networking site. We became fast Facebook friends and made our marriage digitally-official when I updated my relationship status.
For all its digital intelligence, Facebook isn’t able to calculate that our soon-to-be 15 year relationship is amazing. Perhaps that’s why it began presenting me with ads to save my marriage. I wasn’t offended since the ads don’t apply to me. Admittedly, I was intrigued by the sudden change in ads I was being presented and wondered about the reaction of someone who would be offended.
Facebook advertising policies have been criticized several times. This past September, Facebook pulled an ad encouraging young men to conduct a testicular cancer self-exam and a few years ago a journalist wrote about Facebook presenting her with a regular diet of weight loss ads after updating her status when she became engaged.
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