4 ms·

Here 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.wi

Here 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 ago
My 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.
- throwaway-hn123 8y ago
  > 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. Who is preventing a single mom from purchasing that publication? Seriously Brian, you are ignorant, hateful asshole.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I find those to be distinctly different qualities even if the end result is similar. The distinguishing factor is: Who is performing the discrimination? In one example the discrimination is deliberately performed by an ad supplier. In the other example the discrimination is performed by the audience of the offline publication. I come to this conclusion because it is the audience that is choosing which demographically targeted publications to purchase or read. People cannot legally discriminate against themselves. That distinction is also a paradox for Facebook. You cannot be a supplier to everybody and simultaneously to a targeted individual as chosen by individual's inputs. Facebook tries to have both sides of a coin by allowing users maximum flexibility in content preferences and also provide that power to ad suppliers to use for precision targeting.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I also assume that the further you get from overt discrimination based on a protected class the less issue you’re likely to run into. After all, ads on sites or magazines have to be selectively run and each site or magazine has some demographic. Added: HUD lists some advertising practices that it prohibits but obviously the smaller the scale and the grayer the intent, the less likely a complaint.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    In the example, the building owner/manager isn't randomly choosing a publication to put their ad in. They are acting to discriminate against people that don't (or are merely highly unlikely to) read the magazine.
    - 8y ago
dnautics 8y ago
Of course Facebook should allow racial filtering. Not understanding this is a fundamental failure to understand minority businesses. Let's say hypothetically you're selling a product that is highly ethnically selected, like beauty products (before any criticism keep in mind that the first self made American female millionaire, cj walker made her fortune on beauty products) - should you be forced to buy advertising impressions for the majority that has no use for your product? Basically this would create a huge disadvantage/drag to minority entrepreneurs seeking to capitalize on a niche market and grow.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Except that’s literally illegal in housing. Yes it makes sense in other contexts, but it should never have been allowed here. I’m surprised it took this long for them to be sued. Just like job notices they’ve been allowing blatantly illegal ads for a LONG time.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    I’m surprised it took this long for them to be sued. With people like Bosworth and Zuckerberg at the top and Sandberg as consigliere it's no surprise at all. Tone at the top has a huge effect on internal controls.
    - MBCook 8y ago
      I’d agree but it’s the corporate counsel’s job to make sure they know about this stuff. Did counsel never tell them ‘you MUST do something about this’, which seems like a huge failing, or has it been brought up and the executives decide ‘oh well we don’t care’ which would be a REALLY BAD thing to have a court find out about. This is all so easy to avoid. Maybe you’d get sued when someone claimed you weren’t doing enough but they’re not doing ANYTHING. The lowest possible bar.
  - savanaly 8y ago
    If there are good reasons why one ethnicity would prefer housing over another (or, equivalently, if the housing provider would prefer them) then it's just like the beauty products thing and discrimination in advertising should be allowed. And if there aren't then it's hardly worth the time to ban it-- anyone who engaged in it would be wasting their time. So although it seems unclear whether that conditional is met, either way I don't see why we would ban such advertising.

briandear 8y ago

My 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.

throwaway-hn123 8y ago
> 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. Who is preventing a single mom from purchasing that publication? Seriously Brian, you are ignorant, hateful asshole.
austincheney 8y ago
I find those to be distinctly different qualities even if the end result is similar. The distinguishing factor is: Who is performing the discrimination? In one example the discrimination is deliberately performed by an ad supplier. In the other example the discrimination is performed by the audience of the offline publication. I come to this conclusion because it is the audience that is choosing which demographically targeted publications to purchase or read. People cannot legally discriminate against themselves. That distinction is also a paradox for Facebook. You cannot be a supplier to everybody and simultaneously to a targeted individual as chosen by individual's inputs. Facebook tries to have both sides of a coin by allowing users maximum flexibility in content preferences and also provide that power to ad suppliers to use for precision targeting.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I also assume that the further you get from overt discrimination based on a protected class the less issue you’re likely to run into. After all, ads on sites or magazines have to be selectively run and each site or magazine has some demographic. Added: HUD lists some advertising practices that it prohibits but obviously the smaller the scale and the grayer the intent, the less likely a complaint.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  In the example, the building owner/manager isn't randomly choosing a publication to put their ad in. They are acting to discriminate against people that don't (or are merely highly unlikely to) read the magazine.
  - 8y ago

dnautics 8y ago

Of course Facebook should allow racial filtering. Not understanding this is a fundamental failure to understand minority businesses. Let's say hypothetically you're selling a product that is highly ethnically selected, like beauty products (before any criticism keep in mind that the first self made American female millionaire, cj walker made her fortune on beauty products) - should you be forced to buy advertising impressions for the majority that has no use for your product? Basically this would create a huge disadvantage/drag to minority entrepreneurs seeking to capitalize on a niche market and grow.

MBCook 8y ago
Except that’s literally illegal in housing. Yes it makes sense in other contexts, but it should never have been allowed here. I’m surprised it took this long for them to be sued. Just like job notices they’ve been allowing blatantly illegal ads for a LONG time.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  I’m surprised it took this long for them to be sued. With people like Bosworth and Zuckerberg at the top and Sandberg as consigliere it's no surprise at all. Tone at the top has a huge effect on internal controls.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    I’d agree but it’s the corporate counsel’s job to make sure they know about this stuff. Did counsel never tell them ‘you MUST do something about this’, which seems like a huge failing, or has it been brought up and the executives decide ‘oh well we don’t care’ which would be a REALLY BAD thing to have a court find out about. This is all so easy to avoid. Maybe you’d get sued when someone claimed you weren’t doing enough but they’re not doing ANYTHING. The lowest possible bar.
- savanaly 8y ago
  If there are good reasons why one ethnicity would prefer housing over another (or, equivalently, if the housing provider would prefer them) then it's just like the beauty products thing and discrimination in advertising should be allowed. And if there aren't then it's hardly worth the time to ban it-- anyone who engaged in it would be wasting their time. So although it seems unclear whether that conditional is met, either way I don't see why we would ban such advertising.