East Asia

Harris County, Texas, has settled a lawsuit filed by the state attorney general's office over "Get Out the Vote" ads that used Meta ad-targeting tags tied to groups such as African-American literature, Latin music and Hispanic kitchen content. The office, led by Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, spent roughly $43,000 on the ads over 30 days and has agreed to remove the demographic targeting and not reinstate it for the rest of the election. Hudspeth said the tags were dropped to avoid distraction while defending the outreach as lawful; the county attorney's office called the suit a political distraction. The dispute comes as Harris County has already topped 1 million early votes ahead of the November 3 election.