OP of the aforementioned Facebook Ads Prank here. Thank you for remembering it all these years and sharing it here!

Yes, it was discovered 7 years ago (by many) and Facebook has continually lied about it being patched.

Here's a more recent overview of all their lies regarding micro-targeting:

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/05/07/Facebook-Privacy-Busting-...

Yeah like 7 years ago I was thinking about moving into a marketing role and bought a book on social media. The introduction included a bit where the author bought a Facebook ad wishing his wife a happy anniversary because he could target her so precisely.

Came here to post this.

Also, can't read Techcrunch articles because they're blocked (by NextDNS) due to redirecting through https://guce.advertising.com/