"Racial affinity targeting" is a little-known feature on Facebook that has been available to marketers since November of 2014. This feature categorizes users in terms of their interests (as expected) although goes beyond this in the sense that it additionally categorizes in terms of interests regarding racial groups. Universal Studios was able to present completely different trailers for Straight Outta Compton to audiences of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Universal worked to cater to different target audiences in order to increase sales for the movie, although many are questioning how this is any different from racial profiling. The release of this news had led to much online discussion regarding the topic and the true intention behind the creation of separate trailers for the same movie. According to Facebook, "The Facebook multicultural targeting solution is based on affinity, not ethnicity. This provides advertisers with an opportunity to serve highly relevant ad content to affinity-based audiences." This comment has been released repeatedly by Facebook as a justification for the movie trailers without any other follow-up.
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