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HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
- h4b4n3r0 8y agoI was skeptical, but upon reading TFA, they do have a point.
- tomjen3 8y agoYeah, although it seems mostly to be by accident: you can target you facebook ads to whatever group you want, so your bra sales only target women, or your stroller offers only target people with smaller children. Personally I think the law is bullshit: what is interesting, and what we want to prevent, isn't landlords who can target only some group, but landlords who _do_. But I guess facebook makes for an interesting target.
- burkaman 8y agoHow would you prevent landlords from targeting some group without a law that prevents landlords from targeting some group?
- sincerely 8y agoMaybe there's something inherently wrong with targeted ads...
- zo1 8y agoMaybe there's something inherently wrong with thought-policing via "anti-discrimination" laws.
- ghaff 8y agoPretty much every ad ever written in any medium is targeted to some degree or other.
- perl4ever 8y ago"Targeting" seems to me to be completely synonymous with "discriminating".
- quotemstr 8y agoIs it inherently wrong to publish an ad in the Wall Street Journal and not then publish the same ad in Teen Vogue?
- sincerely 8y agoNo, which suggests to me that something changes when you cross from print advertising to digital advertising, but I'm not sure what.
- quotemstr 8y agoIs it wrong to publish an ad on the Wall Street Journal website and not run the same ad on the Teen Vogue website?
- sincerely 8y agoIs that something that actually happens? Do people say "let's run this ad on teenvogue.com"? Don't websites (especially businesses of the scale of WSJ/vogue/etc) get their ads from ad networks?
- quotemstr 8y agoMy question stands. It's easy in current ad targeting setups to limit an ad to running on particular sites or to prohibit an ad from running on certain sites. If someone were to run an ad and configure the campaign such that it appeared on the Wall Street Journal website and not the Teen Vogue website, would this action have any different moral or legal character from deciding to run a print at in the Wall Street Journal instead of Teen Vogue? Why or why not?
- jogjayr 8y agoNo. Because anyone can buy the WSJ and Teen Vogue and see the ad. If you're excluded from being targeted by an FB ad you have no chance of seeing it. If that exclusion criteria forms the basis of a protected class and the ad in question relates to housing, that's illegal. So it's a very narrow set of behaviors that are wrong here, not all of ad targeting. E.g. it's probably not illegal (or even morally wrong) to exclude someone who is interested in topics such as "Hinduism" from ads for beef jerky. Even though religion is a protected class, beef jerky isn't housing. Similarly, it's (probably) not wrong to exclude low-income people from ads for your high-end condo because AFAIK income isn't a protected class.
- jogjayr 8y agoBras and strollers are not essentials for living. Housing is. That's why Fair Housing laws, and not "fair marketing" laws exist. > what we want to prevent, isn't landlords who can target only some group, but landlords who _do_. Sort of. Landlords will always, intentionally or unintentionally, target one group or the other, simply because they can't advertise literally everywhere. The important things are that the contents of the ads aren't discriminatory against protected classes, and they can in theory be seen by anyone who buys the right paper or sees the handbill or billboard or TV ad. FB's targeting appears to remove the possibility of equality of opportunity to view the ads. There's never a reason to allow filtering by protected classes on housing ads, so FB shouldn't have ever provided it as a feature whether directly or indirectly.
- mindslight 8y agoWe all knew that creating/adopting centralized communication platforms ("Web 2.0") was going to end badly, but that was where the money (temporarily) was. Now that they've taken over our culture, it's not surprising that every small time censor is showing up with their demands. (Also, as we're going through an $ideology-scare, a disclaimer: I'm not criticizing the ultimate goal of anti-discrimination housing laws, nor even HUD for going after Faceboot here - but really pointing out the utterly predictable no-win situation these centralizing companies have created for themselves)
- abraham_lincoln 8y agoHow is it futile to comply with the law and not help facilitate discrimination? Reminiscent of IBM's history.
- mindslight 8y agoThe communication middlemen make their profits by being scalable - surveilling users for a few bucks each doesn't add up to much otherwise. Policing speech is not scalable - hence now trying to bolt on the bare minimum after the fact using low paid workers.
- abraham_lincoln 8y agoYeah, surveilling is not profitable, unless reimbursed by the government.
- IBM 8y agoHere's the ProPublica stories that led to this https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers-exclude-users-by-race https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers... https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-discrimination-housing-race-sex-national-origin https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-disc...
- google_censors 8y agoProPublica really did an amazing job of sticking with this, considering that HUD knew what was happening and still dropped the investigation in 2016.
- ne0sapi3n 8y agoHUD Secretary at the time was Julian Castro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Castro
- brennebeck 8y agoDoing a quick scan of his wiki I don’t see anything relevant? Or are you trying to imply something in particular and I just missed it?
- ne0sapi3n 8y agoSimply pointing out the leader of the department at fault. In my humble opinion, this is useful for holding bad government actors responsible.
- Paul-ish 8y agoProPublica does some really good investigative reporting. They are the first ones on the scene with high quality reporting on a lot of current issues. I have donated to them in the past.
- 0x00000000 8y ago>and/or zip code. >effectively limit housing options for these protected classes I have head of zip code being protected or personally identifiable information but never a protected class Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to discrimination against people over the age of 40.
- google_censors 8y agoIt's not really a protected class, but a case of redlining, which is, to quote wikipedia: "the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities"
- astura 8y ago>Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to discrimination against people over the age of 40. In employment law, not housing law.
- 0x00000000 8y agoAs far as I know HOPA is the only federal law affecting housing age and it allows them to create "senior only" communities. So it is effectively the same. Older people can discriminate against younger people but younger people cannot discriminate against older people.
- astura 8y ago>Older people can discriminate against younger people No. Family status is protected in housing law, so no, a landlord can't refuse to rent to someone because they have young children. Exceptions apply for certain senior living communities, but they are 55+, not 40+.
- wtvanhest 8y agoThat is not what OP is saying...
- RightMillennial 8y ago> The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions including print and online advertisement on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status. Emphasis mine. If the FHA does indeed prohibit online advertisement discriminating on those criteria, this sounds pretty damning to Facebook. Those are some of the key features of Facebook ads.
- burkaman 8y agohttps://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2 https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2 Sec. 804 (c): > To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination. This clearly covers online or any other kind of ad.
- RightMillennial 8y agoI just found that same page. The heading to that section is: > Sec. 804. [42 U.S.C. 3604] Discrimination in sale or rental of housing and other prohibited practices
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoLooks like if this goes to trial it's all going to hinge on exactly what "To publish an advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling, with an intention to make a preference based on race, color, ..." means. To me that seems quite clearly to refer to the ad itself - that the ad cannot make a preference, implicitly or explicitly, for any group. However, who the ad is shown to would seem to be another issue altogether. If this applies even in who the ads is shown to, think about the implications. What if I run an ad in e.g. "Golf Digest Weekly"? Would that be unlawful for that publication to actually publish? What if I place a billboard in a high income area? Is the billboard renter liable? Is my ad unlawful? If I place a for-sale sign in the yard of a vacant house in a high-end neighborhood, is that unlawful as well? I'd like to think the HUD has thought out their case and it's implications, but I don't see how you can take their interpretation of this law without practically destroying all housing ads - which is clearly not their intent. So I'm very anxious to see how this plays out in court!
- beager 8y agoIt would seem fairly straightforward for Facebook to collect information about whether an advertisement pertains to something that has anti-discriminatory regulations tied to it (housing, employment). I generally agree that FB should not be allowed to permit users to segment these types of advertisements by the dimensions claimed. However, what piques my curiosity here is whether “indirect” discrimination in choice of advertising medium constitutes discriminatory practice. For instance, what if some of these advertisers, instead of segmenting directly by race to target whites only, targeted fans of pages that were obviously but not specifically comprised of whites (e.g., “Irish American Heritage” or “Blonde Hair Tips”). Would there be a case to be made for discrimination? And against whom?
- dominotw 8y agoWhat about housing ad posted only in places like whole foods or a particular newspaper. I know my previous landlady did this.
- ghaff 8y agoIn practice, for better or worse, a lot of things escape notice when done obliquely at small scale.
- dominotw 8y agoYeah I guess there is a balance you have strike in order not to become an Orwellian society.
- jogjayr 8y agoIt seems to me that even though the intention of that is discriminatory in some way (and not necessarily against protected classes - the Whole Foods ads might be simply to target higher-income tenants), it's not in fact exclusionary. There's nothing preventing anyone who's not the normal target of these ads from going to Whole Foods or buying those newspapers. In FB's case the excluded audience has no chance of ever seeing those ads.
- koenigdavidmj 8y agoSeems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.
- koboll 8y agoWhat about this complaint would prevent Facebook from addressing it without humans involved? All they're going to do is revoke microtargeting abilities from housing ads.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joelhaasnoot 8y agoHow do they determine what's a housing ad? There's two pieces to this a) Facebook makes this possible and b) Facebook damns themselves and promotes that they make this possible for housing. Part b is easy to fix: make it harder to do housing ads that are targeted. However, part a is much harder: what stops me from advertising my AirBnb listing as a URL on Facebook as a "generic ad"?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago> what stops me from advertising my AirBnb listing as a URL on Facebook as a "generic ad"? By not permitting Airbnb URLs as generic ads. Edit to ad: and placing a warning if it looks like it might be a housing ad: “this looks like a housing related ad and has been flagged for moderation”
- jerf 8y ago"How do they determine what's a housing ad?" You ask the user to say what type of ad it is, under penalty of violation of contract, and contractually obligate them to carry the legal risk if they lie. There's no requirement that it be done via some fancy ML algorithm. I would expect that unless FB actively attempts to piss off the government, that would pass legal muster. Goodness knows I've signed enough agreements where I've agreed to very similar clauses just in normal day-to-day life.
- yardie 8y agoHow did they not see this coming. Are they not familiar with another dotcom called Craigslist who had to deal with this very same regulation years ago. Their counsel either wasn't aware of what FB marketplace was doing or didn't know about FHA laws. > draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes. This alone is really damn damning. I'm going to go out on a limb and say their counsel is really young and didn't know this was a problem. There is a lot of history in that sentence alone.
- dev_dull 8y agoI’m sure their counsel knows exactly what they’re doing. Sometimes when you’re big and bad enough it’s worth it to take a gamble and see how things will settle in court. And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. People and cultures change and so should our regulation and laws.
- EB66 8y ago> And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. ...what? Are you suggesting it's a good thing that we bring back red lining and other discriminatory practices?
- earloflexus 8y agoYeah - where'd Facebook get the idea that businesses should be able to choose who they work with? Is it any surprise that they who deplatformed Alex Jones allow landlords to discriminate as well?
- dwaltrip 8y agoReading charitably, perhaps they meant: it was bad in the case, but it isn't always a bad thing.
- mikec3010 8y agoIf you dont show someone an ad, that's not discrimination. It's just not advertising to a group of people.
- sillysaurus3 8y agoFrom an ethics point of view, why is this illegal?
- joelhaasnoot 8y agoThis creates ghettos
- 4ad 8y agoThis law was created in 1968 IIRC. Ghettos still exist today, in 2018, 50 years laters. It seems to me the law is not doing anything.
- azernik 8y agoBecause American culture has a tendency to exclude certain groups, and allowing that to go too far in vital markets like housing and labor is bad for social stability.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- austincheney 8y agoHere are the likely relevant laws in question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 By law you cannot discriminate by any designation of protected class, which includes not only parties to a business transaction but also messaging and opportunities there upon. I do understand why Facebook would allow ad display filtering by race and other demographic categorizations since they are a media organization who sells advertising. Whether or not that practice is morally qualified or agreeable it makes sense from a business perspective (oh how I do detest advertising). What I don't get is why Facebook would allow ad suppliers the option to set values to these filters. Facebook has the data to make optimal demographic determinations for a geographically centered business market. Perhaps this indicates that either Facebook isn't very good at that or that ad supplies prefer to perform their own independent research out of distrust or lack of availability from Facebook. Anyway, this does look like a valid complaint. I wouldn't just sue Facebook though. I would also seek for discovery of the ad suppliers and sue them as well. Facebook is just the proxy here. Somebody is making a deliberate determination to racial profile in violation of the spirit of the law. --- EDIT. See the third bullet point here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Types_of_banned_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Types...
- briandear 8y agoMy question would be if an advertiser advertised housing in a demographically targeted publication, for example, a publication focused only on single gay men, if that would necessarily function as discrimination since single mothers wouldn’t be reading that publication, nor those ads. Facebook allows demographic targeting that just happens to be more “effective,” but no more discriminatory that the way conventional targeted “offline” advertising works now. Advertising housing in a newsletter for Jewish people, does that not result in discrimination against non Jews since they wouldn’t see that ad? It seems that as long as the housing and the ad content itself weren’t discriminatory, the law would seem to be upheld. What this suit seems to be saying is that you are obligated to advertise your housing where every protected group would have an equal chance of seeing the ad, anything less would be discriminatory right? The very slippery slope is that housing ads themselves could only appear in official, government publications otherwise some group or another would be discriminated against since they wouldn’t normally see the ad.
- kryogen1c 8y agoThis complaint seems like its shooting itself in the foot - discrimination isn't inherently bad. When you hire, you discriminate based on ability. When you date, you discriminate in a number of ways like beauty, personality, etc. If you're selling ads for wheelchairs you want to discriminate for people with disabilities. If your houses aren't wheelchair accessible, you want your ads to discriminate against people with disabilities. If there are "majority-minority zip codes" then maybe advertising against the demographic is a waste of your time and money. The idea that we should operate without discrimination is a toothless platitude with little bearing on reality. It is not Facebooks responsibility to change reality because they are able to accurately quantify and qualify it's existence, and sell ads based on their findings.
- deviationblue 8y agoThe day 'discrimination' happens to you, you'll sing a different tune.
- james-mcelwain 8y agoIt is, however, Facebook's obligation to abide by the law, particularly 50 year old laws with decades of settled case law.
- dennisgorelik 8y agoThe law is against publishing discriminatory ads (discriminatory wordings that encouraged racial hate). Facebook ad audience filtering -- is a very different tool.
- MBCook 8y agoThat’s a straw man. This case isn’t “no one can discriminate with ads”. It’s “no one can discriminate ILLEGALY with THIS TYPE of ad”.
- jogjayr 8y agoThe law finds the combination of "housing ad" and "discriminatory targeting" to be illegal. You can do discriminatory targeting when you're selling wheelchairs or other products. You can post housing ads. You just can't do both.
- samfisher83 8y agoThese are the specific points they are going after: -display housing ads either only to men or women; -not show ads to Facebook users interested in an "assistance dog," "mobility scooter," "accessibility" or "deaf culture"; -not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in "child care" or "parenting," or show ads only to users with children above a specified age; -to display/not display ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in a particular place of worship, religion or tenet, such as the "Christian Church," "Sikhism," "Hinduism," or the "Bible." -not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in "Latin America," "Canada," "Southeast Asia," "China," "Honduras," or "Somalia." -draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes. The 1st 4 should have never been allowed. This is a 50 year old law. Its not like its something new.
- eahman00 8y ago>to display/not display ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in a particular place of worship, religion or tenet, such as the "Christian Church," "Sikhism," "Hinduism," or the "Bible." It says "such as"; I'm interested if this list includes "synagogue" or "Torah". Is there any place the entire list is included?
- creaghpatr 8y agoI guess you could in theory go buy some ads on fb and see what it lets you scope
- dsr_ 8y agoNo. The point of non-discrimination is not to protect certain classes, but to protect everyone. The list to check against has to grow over time to reflect current usage. "colanders", "pirates", "meatballs": the Pastafarians are just as much a protected class as Catholics, Jains and Druze.
- int_19h 8y ago> the Pastafarians are just as much a protected class as Catholics, Jains and Druze. Only if they can demonstrate that their religious beliefs are sincere. There have been some court cases along these lines already.
- UncleEntity 8y agoI'm not really seeing how it's Facebook's job to enforce this particular law as opposed to the HUD whose job it is to go after landlords/sellers doing the actual discriminating. Just because the advertiser can use these tools to discriminate doesn't mean they actually do or mean they aren't 100% personally responsible to comply with the law. I was kind of under the impression there were checks and balances to prevent these sorts of governmental fishing expeditions...
- MBCook 8y agoBecause the text of the law literally says it is. This isn’t a question of an agency interpretating a law to mean X, it’s right there in the text. It was written with newspaper classifieds in mind (and probably other things). But it clearly applies.
- UncleEntity 8y agoIf you ignore the section which prohibits overt (and blatantly illegal) discrimination then the section which applies to this case is the "intention to discriminate" clause which requires Facebook to determine intent behind the targeting of the advertisements. And, as we all know, nobody wants Facebook to be the Thought Police. Umm, well...most people don't want Facebook to be the Thought Police but that's besides the point. Now (if HUD's arguments are valid) Facebook needs to determine if a landlord trying to run an efficient ad campaign or is making sure the "wrong kind of people" don't apply to be tenants. Either way the burden of proof is on Facebook since they are directly accountable for the thought processes of a third party simply by giving them the ability to discriminate against prospective tenants while (one would hope) not intending to discriminate against anyone themselves. So, yes, I'm sticking by my original opinion that it isn't Facebook's responsibility to do HUD's job of rooting out the bad actors.
- MBCook 8y ago> If you ignore the section which prohibits overt (and blatantly illegal) discrimination Why should we ignore it? It sounds like Facebook allows you to use those exact things to target your ad. Thus the problem.
- Karishma1234 8y agoEssentially an archaic organisation using an archaic law against a modern ad delivery platform. What a travesty.
- AdamM12 8y agoRegulator land grab imo. FHA is intended to regulate the owners of real estate. HUD shouldn't be in the advertising regulation business.
- astura 8y ago... except the FHA literally has text that specifically applies to housing advertisements. They are enforcing the letter of the law. >(c) To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.
- Karishma1234 8y agoWell, that is the point. Why is HUD regulating ad business ? Why has no one challenged this on 1st amendment basis ? Or is this too political a thing here ? > or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination. And HUD is also regulating "intentions" ?
- dang 8y agoWould you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? It's destructive of what this site exists for, the site guidelines ask you not to, and we ban accounts that continue doing it, regardless of their politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Karishma1234 8y agoI am unable to see any political arguments here. Need to take off your hippie glasses I suppose.
- modells 8y ago0) Not to justify but to give a similar example: CL rarely takes (or took in the past) down zillions of postings that are/were blatantly illegal, i.e., “Seeking roommate: female ONLY.” 1) People are going to discriminate, even if it’s illegal. Heck, I was at a restaurant and an Israeli couple were smugly grinning about how they were discriminating against a candidate whom was “male and too old” by wasting his time and not calling them back. It sucks, but you can’t legislate not being an asshat, even with ostensibly anti-asshat laws.
- astura 8y agoCraigslist doesn't take down "Seeking roommate: female ONLY" because those ads are not illegal. https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA >Federal Fair Housing laws prohibit discriminatory advertising in all housing, regardless of how large or small the property. However, as discussed below, advertising which expresses a preference based upon sex is allowed in shared living situations where tenants will share a bathroom, kitchen, or other common area. >Shared Housing Exemption -- If you are advertising a shared housing unit, in which tenants will be sharing a bathroom, kitchen, or other common area, you may express a preference based upon sex only. I HAVE seen Craigslist take down apartment ads that list religious preferences.
- AdamM12 8y agoWhy is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it. Government overreach imo. Edit: grammatical mistakes
- null000 8y agoThis is similar to if the NYT ran discriminatory ads - which is an actual case from the 1980s and resulted in both notable fines, and the NYT having humans review housing ads for discriminatory practices, such as having an unrepresentably white set of models in housing ads (from one of the propublica links in some of the other comments). Same goes for craigslist, which also has to screen housing ads. I'd argue both are responsible - the platform hosting the ad and the people making the ad.
- AdamM12 8y agoNo only person that is responsible is the person who placed the ad. Facebook didn't select the target market and write up the copy.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- phkahler 8y agoWe need to go by the law here, which indicates an ad publisher is guilty in addition to the one who placed the ad. You may argue an opinion about the law, but it looks like Facebook is in violation of it.
- dibstern 8y agoYou just want to change the law to benefit Facebook. Seems odd. Your other comments state that you value the ideal entirely over the practical, with the practical having no value to you at all. Fortunately, the practical is considered important by lawmakers.
- fma 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- quotemstr 8y agoFollowed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based on X is therefore prohibited discrimination. They can repeat this process for all X. Now, you might argue that ad targeting is bad. That's a common position on HN. But it's not true: ad targeting is good for advertisers, since it enables more efficient advertising, and it's good for users, since it subjects them to less noise and exposes them to ads more likely to be relevant to them. Ad targeting also undergirds practically the entire tech economy. That probably means you, reader of this comment. Where exactly should restrictions on ad targeting stop? EDIT: For clarity: Step 1: HUD files a complaint against Facebook for allowing ad targeting based on certain criteria. Step 2: Facebook bans advertising targeting based on the criteria in the HUD complaint. Step 3: Advertisers react by targeting based on demographic correlates of the categories from step #1. Step 4: HUD notices that ads are still getting delivered more to one group than another. GOTO STEP #1. There's no clear point at which this process stops. Demographic correlates are numerous and strong. Are you going to ban all of them? That's tantamount to banning ad targeting generally!
- ticviking 8y agoSo it eliminates the financial incentive for massive private surveillance?
- wcrichton 8y agoIt stops at the product, no? It seems more acceptable to target advertisements for toys than housing.
- quotemstr 8y agoShould Facebook be liable for allowing an advertiser to target a housing ad at people with preferences for organic food?
- jjm 8y agoWe simply have laws for these. If the laws still do not deter then increase the penalty until they’re adhered to. Such that it will leave no such question as to whose responsibility it is. If we do not want such laws then repeal them. Only the rule of law will prevail here. Simply know the rules, or pay the penalty.
- sigfubar 8y ago-
- plicense 8y agoLol what? There are good talented engineers at Facebook who work on things entirely different from ads personalization and you want to penalize them too? And what makes you decide it's the engineers who are at fault for how Facebook displays ads?
- emilfihlman 8y agoI don't really see how this should be against the law. It is only advertising.
- MBCook 8y agoSo you should be allowed to advertise anything even if illegal? Like hitman services?
- dantheman 8y agoA question if you run ads and tune your ad buy to focus on those people with the highest conversion rate. To reduce the amount you're spending by targeting the ads, does this mean that's not allowed? It looks like this is to ensure advertisement reaches all protected categories. Can this mean that one would be forced to advertise in magazines that cater to different audiences? To guarantee a certain subset of the population is covered? Thinking of facebook like traditional media doesn't really work. If we allow people to choose where they're advertising, by definition they're targeting. It'd be like randomly buying ads in magazines and papers. At the end of the day, it seems more like landlords intent for targeting is more important than anything and that is where the fault lies. If you had a building in an area that catered to people speaking a minority language (5%) of the population; can you target speakers of that language or do you have to spend 20x?
- beagle3 8y agoCompare to jobs. It’s ok to require candidates to speak a minority language iff that has something to do with the job. But it is not ok to require a specific age, gender or marital status. Landlord ads are more or less like job ads, in that sense.
- dantheman 8y agoThese aren't requirements though; it's not like saying you must speak Italian to live here. It's more like advertising a job posting for a doctor in a medical journal instead of a car magazine.
- jonathanyc 8y agoAre you seriously comparing advertising job openings to doctors with advertising apartments to only people of a certain race? You can’t just parameterize “x” and call it an argument.
- cm2187 8y agoA better comparison is advertising in a catholic newspaper. Is that a discrimination toward non catholics? It’s a bit of a stretch.
- icantdrive55 8y agoBen is playing the long game. I'm kinda impressed. About time?
- 00__00 8y agoThis is simply WEBLINING, an online version of the 1960s Redlining. See http://www.netopia.eu/weblining-why-eating-at-nandos-could-cost-you-your-mortgage/ http://www.netopia.eu/weblining-why-eating-at-nandos-could-c...
- jimnotgym 8y agoCan anyone tell me what kind of penalty Facebook could face for this? Are we talking a) A token fine b) A fine large enough that it sees investors taking action against the management c) A fine that is an existential threat to Facebook d) Jail time for executives e) Forced closure I just wonder if anyone can suggest how serious this could be if they are found to be I the wrong?
- pertsix 8y agoJust a small fine and remedial action to resolve the violation. This also happens to traditional businesses.
- xxpor 8y agoI think most likely is a consent decree that says they're not allowed to engage in this behavior, and the gov has the right to inspect their operations to ensure compliance. That along with a token fine.
- coolaliasbro 8y agoI'm no fan of Facebook or discrimination, and am happy to see this pursued by the federal government, but I personally would gladly be excluded from all ads, ranging from billboards to search results to food packaging. I guess what I'm thinking is, if Facebook had a feature (maybe it does, I'm not a user) allowing members to search housing classifieds, and if that feature allowed listing agents to discriminate against who saw their listings in results, that would be straight up bullshit. But, AFAIK, anyone can anonymously search different housing listing platforms for available housing wherever they want to live, so I guess I'm just struggling to see how housing advertising is worth this sort of scrutiny at all. Again, I stress that discrimination is fucked and I'm happy to see something being done about it on any level, at all. I just feel like there are surely bigger fish to fry and spending resources on pursuing to whom/how ads are delivered doesn't seem like the best investment.
- rtkwe 8y agoThe issue here is that Facebook is explicitly allowing the property owners to make discriminatory housing ads. It doesn't matter how many other sources there are because publishers are also forbidden from making discriminatory ads in the law. In the end they're going to have to either stop allowing housing ads or remove any filtering for those ads that relate to a protected class (including any fine grained geographic filters too probably because those turn into a racial proxy pretty quickly) and anything that's a significant proxy for something like race.
- AndyMcConachie 8y agoThere is interesting precedent in the form of Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Council_of_San_Fernando_Valley_v._Roommates.com,_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Council_of_San_Fe... Worth reading the case to understand what FB is up against here.
- cm2012 8y agoSo they want FB to make "housing" ads a separate, algorithmically tracked entity like political ads are. Not a fan - where would it end?
- azernik 8y agoIt would end where the specific categories of advertising are not the ones specifically covered by legislation. Off the top of my head - housing, employment, and political campaigning.
- HugoDaniel 8y agoIs complaining against Facebook the new black ?
- nostromo 8y agoIn most verticals marketers will have a set of ads for different demographics: say gay, suburban, latino, black, Spanish-speaking, etc. Each of those campaigns will have different creative: for example, a real estate ad targeted to latinos will have an image showing a smiling latino couple. I can understand why the marketer would not want to show this creative to white, black, or asians -- given that they're targeting creative for a different group of people. This sort of practice seems fairly benign -- it's not about denying housing, but about targeting creative for different subgroups. As a gay person, I see this all over the web. Smiling happy gay people buying cars or real estate or whatever. I imagine that behind each of these ads straight people have been de-selected for seeing this ad. But that doesn't mean these advertisers hate straight people or would deny a straight customer. It just means that for that specific ad and creative they were targeting gay people.
- dibstern 8y agoThe problem is total exclusion, not targeting for sub-groups by campaign. If they wanted to target sub-groups by campaign, they could offer a service to advertise differently to different subgroups. But that’s not at all what’s happening - this is an exclusion of some subgroups, where the only feasible reason for their exclusion is their demographic, rather than the good/service being sold or the type of advertisement.
- throwawaymath 8y agoWhat you're describing makes sense, but would it not also be possible with inclusion-based targeting instead of exclusion-based targeting?
- nostromo 8y agoIs there a difference?
- throwawaymath 8y agoI'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that inclusionary targeting is legal whereas exclusionary targeting is not, and exclusionary targeting is what's happening. Inclusionary targeting uses logic of the form, "This user corresponds to subgroup A; load content specialized for subgroup A." Exclusionary targeting is of the form, "This user corresponds to subgroup A; do not load any content for this user." If you'd like to target a specific demographic you can do so using either inclusionary or exclusionary targeting. Only one of those systems also allows you to explicitly exclude one or more groups rather than just target a subset of groups. Your example seems to be a very charitable interpretation of how exclusionary targeting could be used. There's (probably) nothing wrong with it if it's used that way. But you could just as easily use the system you described to prevent a variety of protected demographics from being able to see the advertisement whatsoever.
- rachelbythebay 8y agoThis is why you need a wide range of experiences represented in your company. Monocultures tend to miss things that are obvious to others.
- iamleppert 8y agoWow, this page is pretty damning evidence: https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes It basically is showing that Facebook knowingly implemented a system to discriminate against people. Even the stock photos are full of white people. Here's hoping HUD makes a big example out of them and fines them to the fullest extent of the law.
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- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoHuh. The stock photo at the top of that link for me has a picture of a white man, an Asian woman, and an Asian-looking little girl. There are no other stock photos on the page. https://imgur.com/gHzzBXU https://imgur.com/gHzzBXU
- shard972 8y agoI mean, asians look white to me.
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- a13n 8y agoWhy is this Facebook's fault? Wouldn't this be the advertiser's fault for choosing those filters? You can also conduct illegal activity via Facebook messenger of groups, does that make it Facebook's fault?
- azernik 8y agoBecause the law happens to make the advertising platforms liable. It does so because enforcing this as an individual crime is impractical for the government, so it essentially outsources the work to advertising publishers. See e.g. a similar case brought against the New York Times in the 80s, and the resulting investment by the Times in a reviewing process where humans went through submitted ads looking for discrimination.
- scarface74 8y agoIf a newspaper published an ad for real estate for “Whites only”. They would be held responsible.
- mancerayder 8y agoThe adtech industry is probably having emergency meetings with its legal staff. What's this imply for targeted advertising, and how are we going to police the legality of which ads can target what given laws against discrimination?
- LanceH 8y agoSo if I get a radio license and then broadcast an illegal ad, it's the FCC's fault. Why is everyone trying so hard to turn facebook (and google, twitter, etc...) into a filter on everything we say? When facebook gets held responsible for all content in all jurisdiction it will err on the side of proscription. It was only about 10 years ago that many now acceptable (mandatory even) progressive positions were not in favor. It won't be another day or two before there is another article bemoaning google acquiescing to China. Pick one. I'll take the one that is open, the crazies broadcast their fake news and we have the occasional illegal ad. By the way, if these ads are illegal and conducted through facebook, how easy is it for the FHA to look up who is responsible and go after them. Their whole job is done for them. Going after Facebook is sensational and feels good I guess.
- dustingetz 8y agothis is a consequence of facebook owning the network (on purpose obviously), as opposed to something like the web or the air which is not centrally owned. yay capitalism!
- twblalock 8y agoFacebook is the publisher of the ads and is responsible for obeying the law. If someone asks Facebook to publish an illegal ad, Facebook should not do it. This is not a free speech issue, or a political speech issue. Nobody is censoring progressive or conservative positions in this case. It's an issue of legality in real estate advertising under a framework of laws that were written decades ago.
- j16sdiz 8y agoThe problem is: These kind of censorship of use generated content can't scale up to all jurisdiction. Maybe we should acknowledge it is impossible to make a global, legal, Facebook-like website.
- wyattpeak 8y agoWhy would we do that? We haven't been able to stop merchants swindling customers since the invention of trade, but we don't throw up our hands and shut down all markets. We just do the best we can to keep things as upright as possible.
- Karishma1234 8y agoWhile many people are arguing how Facebook could have missed the regulation I think it is pretty sad that such large corporations have lost their moral compass and in their greed they have forgotten basic human values. Irrespective of law I think Facebook should have been sensitive and should have discouraged people from discriminatory ad spend unless the product truly requires it. For example it makes sense to target African Americans for hair braiding services but I do not see why Facebook should have allowed housing ads to target based on Race and handicap. I also think HUD is not the correct government arm here. HUD is dealing with only rental issues but under the surface there might be more horrible discriminations being enabled by Facebook. What we need is a new regulatory federal body that will ensure equitable ad targeting policies and ensure minorities like handicapped people, muslims, blacks etc. are not harmed.
- scarface74 8y agoThe law is quite clear about an advertiser’s liability. https://fairhousing.com/legal-research/hud-resources/advertisements-under-804c-fair-housing-act-jan-9-1995 https://fairhousing.com/legal-research/hud-resources/adverti... Section 804(c) of the Act prohibits the making, printing and publishing of advertisements which state a preference, limitation or discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. The prohibition applies to publishers, such as newspapers and directories, as well as to persons and entities who place real estate advertisements. It also applies to advertisements where the underlying property may be exempt from the provisions of the Act, but where the advertisement itself violates the Act. See 42 U.S.C. 3603 (b). Publishers and advertisers are responsible under the Act for making, printing, or publishing an advertisement that violates the Act on its face. Thus, they should not publish or cause to be published an advertisement that on its face expresses a preference, limitation or discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. To the extent that either the Advertising Guidelines or the case law do not state that particular terms or phrases (or closely comparable terms) may violate the Act, a publisher is not liable under the Act for advertisements which, in the context of the usage in a particular advertisement, might indicate a preference, limitation or discrimination, but where such a preference is not readily apparent to an ordinary reader. Therefore, complaints will not be accepted against publishers concerning advertisements where the language might or might not be viewed as being used in a discriminatory context. As far as roommates.... For example, Intake staff should not accept a complaint against a newspaper for running an advertisement which includes the phrase female roommate wanted because the advertisement does not indicate whether the requirements for the shared living exception have been met. Publishers can rely on the representations of the individual placing the ad that shared living arrangements apply to the property in question. Persons placing such advertisements, however, are responsible for satisfying the conditions for the exemption. Thus, an ad for a female roommate could result in liability for the person placing the ad if the housing being advertised is actually a separate dwelling unit without shared living spaces. See 24 CFR 109.20.
- gok 8y agoFacebook goes after Trump’s attack dog (Alex Jones); Trump’s department goes after Facebook.
- ralusek 8y agoI'm not in the business of defending Facebook, I neither like their business model nor their product...but this is an unreasonable accusation levied against them. Their business is "I know ABCDEF about people, who would you like me to distribute your content to?" Distributing content to people along ABCDE and F demographics happens to be legal in almost every case. The exception is specific housing discrimination laws that prevent filtering on ABC, etc. It is outrageously unreasonable to expect Facebook to be responsible for the specific laws surrounding advertising for their customers. They provide targeted advertising. If their client targets demographics using an advertising strategy that happens to be illegal within their own industry, the responsibility is on the client/landlord, not Facebook. This is very much akin to blaming Microsoft for someone hacking from a Windows PC, or blaming the phonebook for a Chinese person emphasizing cold calls to the "Lee" portion of the book. If their actions are illegal, so be it, but the automatic assumption that the platform is responsible for the content that their users produce is fundamentally flawed.
- pjc50 8y agoThey're not responsible... until they're told about it. Traditionally platforms benefit from safe harbour by being neutral, but the whole point here is that the decision about who to show the ads to can only be made by Facebook.
- azernik 8y agoThe law on housing discrimination is quite clear and even-handed on this topic - ad distributors are liable for discriminatory ads they publish (the law specifically includes "publishes" in the list of criminal verbs, and this was actually enforced in court against the New York Times in the 80s); and selectively-targeted ads are discriminatory (see Code of Federal Regulations section 109.25, down near the bottom of https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF)
- throw2016 8y agoIt would seem the education system has failed significantly if the serious issues with segregation, racism and discrimination that have plagued the country remain unknown to the extent that half the commentators here don't seem to understand why laws were passed, why Facebook is wrong and why things are the way they are. It's as if they don't understand how widespread racism, discrimination and segregation was, how it was systematically enforced, how it occurred and continues to occur and why these measures remain important. Given this affected parties must continue the fight because that's the only way to confront selective memories, denial and ignorance.
- peter_retief 8y agocurl: (6) Could not resolve host: www.hud.gov
- linsomniac 8y agoI do technology at an MLS and we police our listings and have agents change terminology that may violate fair housing laws, including things like "man cave" (a frequent violation). For a while we were also contacting agents if they used drone photos of the property, because of restrictions on the commercial use of drones.
- sklivvz1971 8y agoWhat many commenters do not understand here is that Facebook is making a killing by allowing this kind of illegal targeting. They know what's going on but they clearly don't care unless they get sued. In the meanwhile they made millions/forced the competition out/made it "standard"...
- hippich 8y agoSo if I pretend in front of facebook I am poor, I can see less ads? Sounds good :)
- JDWolf 8y agoI would prefer to have no ads.
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