7 ms·

These 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

These 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 ago
  I guess you could in theory go buy some ads on fb and see what it lets you scope
- dsr_ 8y ago
  No. 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.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Nobody asks a Christian to confirm that their beliefs are sincere, and that they aren't just pretending to believe in God, for the social benefits it brings.
      - shard972 8y ago
        Have you been watching US politics in the last few years? At this point people just seem to make the assumption that people like donald trump are just lying about their faith as if it's a completely normal thing to assert about someone.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        That exact thing happens in the UK. https://www.sundaypost.com/news/uk-news/school-places-withdrawn-after-scores-of-parents-caught-lying/ https://www.sundaypost.com/news/uk-news/school-places-withdr... For purposes of going to secondary school, I was raised Catholic. Slightly more completed my case as although my dad was an atheist, my mum thought she was taking it seriously (given how many New Age books and Hindu icons and statues she had, I don’t count her as a proper Catholic).
      - roel_v 8y ago
        Well just the last week, the Dutch highest administrative court ruled that Pastafarianism is not a real religion. Do you at least see why (you don't have to agree, just understand)?
        Retric 8y ago
        I can understand the reasoning. However, that ruling does not apply to the US. It’s something of a cultural identity issue in the US. Mocking religious beliefs in the abstract is often acceptable, but mocking specific people is far less so.
matchagaucho 8y ago
How much of the responsibility falls on the Landlord, given they created the targeted ad segments? It's not like the Facebook Ad Manager has a guided wizard for the real estate industry to target prospective tenants.
- jahewson 8y ago
  Facebook knows exactly what kind of advertisers they have on their platform. https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes
  - gt_ 8y ago
    This language is over the top. It elicits the coherency of what I’d describe as a full-time partial orgasm and nothing more. Here are some of the more offensive bits but you really have to click on the link to get full effect. “...strategic audience targeting and ads optimized for higher intent...” “...specific lookalike audience...” “...filtered out less qualified leads...” “...key employers... “...people with interests in real estate...” “...lookalike audiences consisting of people who are similar to its clients...”
- sorokod 8y ago
  It is not like there is a physical law of responsibility conservation. Multiple entities can carry 100% responsibility.
  - extralego 8y ago
    Bless this comment. I think this is a succinct representation of the struggles we are facing as a society.
  - rfugger 8y ago
    Like links in a chain, they are all required for the chain to hold.
swerveonem 8y ago
Facebook did this or housing companies used the Facebook targeting boolean option to configure ad campaigns in this way?
- twblalock 8y ago
  It doesn't really make a difference, because when housing companies use Facebook's targeting options it is still Facebook who accepts the ad and publishes it on facebook.com. If you do something illegal because someone asked you to do it, it's still illegal.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    It's not obvious to me. If I photocopy an ilegal ad at Kinko's, is it Kinko's fault? If I send an illegal ad via first class mail, is it USPS's fault?
    - thisiszilff 8y ago
      I don't think it's the ad, per say, but the agreement for delivery. It's be like you sending housing ads and asking USPS to only deliver them to men. USPS would probably be on the hook then as well. Back to your point though, it is a new domain because with your paper examples there is no one who can "undo" the illegal ad. You copy it at Kinko's and it's not like Kinko's is out there delivering it with you. With online platforms, they both Target and deliver these ads and are responsible for continually delivering them.
    - jahewson 8y ago
      What a dumb question. No, of course it’s not. If you ask USPS to display your illegal ad in their window then it certainly is their fault. That would be an actually comparable situation here.
      - mirimir 8y ago
        Well, there was a criminal case against FedEx for delivering illegal prescriptions from Internet drug stores. But it got tossed.
tekromancr 8y ago
The geotargeting polygon was literally RED!?! I can believe that being an oversight, but holy Shit those optics... yikes
- jahewson 8y ago
  For those outside the US who may be wondering why this is so significant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
  - EdwardDiego 8y ago
    Ah, thank you :)
  - nasredin 8y ago
    >>In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices.
- bumholio 8y ago
  Redlining does not mean simply drawing red polygons on the map. To be guilty of redlining, Facebook must have known the ethnic/racial/religious composition of the excluded areas and it must have known that the advertisers were using the tools for discrimination. Quite a tall order.
  - themarkn 8y ago
    I don't consider it a tall order, it's exactly what I'd expect advertisers to do with these tools, if there was no specific process to prevent them from doing so.
  - tekromancr 8y ago
    This case hinges on three facts. First, displaying housing ads that exclude protected classes is illegal. Second is that Facebook built tools that allowed advertisers to create said illegal ads. Finally, Facebook had no oversight process to reject potentially illegal ads. The fact that Facebook created tools that allowed advertisers to effectively cause Facebook to break the law in an automated fashion isn't really much of a defense.
vt_throwaway123 8y ago
IANAL but it seems both from the comments here and common sense that the law only makes ad publishers liable for discriminatory ads, not advertising campaigns that target in a discriminatory way while advertisers are liable for both. Making publishers liable for the latter is also problematic and likely unprecedented because typically publishers do not have this information. Any given publisher only receives some portion of the entire advertising budget for the campaign and cannot possibly know how the rest of the budget is spent and whether the full campaign adds up to being discriminatory. For example, if you own a newspaper that caters to people of a specific national origin, are you not allowed to accept any housing ads? By definition, any ad placement on that newspaper is discriminatory in terms of targeting - without knowing the full details of the campaign, they cannot verify that the overall targeting is not discriminatory. This means that any law that makes publishers liable must be restricted to the content of the ads and any law that goes after the demographic targeting likely limits liability to the entity - the advertiser or perhaps agencies - who have full control and knowledge of the targeting in question. Does this make sense?

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 ago
I guess you could in theory go buy some ads on fb and see what it lets you scope
dsr_ 8y ago
No. 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.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Nobody asks a Christian to confirm that their beliefs are sincere, and that they aren't just pretending to believe in God, for the social benefits it brings.
    - shard972 8y ago
      Have you been watching US politics in the last few years? At this point people just seem to make the assumption that people like donald trump are just lying about their faith as if it's a completely normal thing to assert about someone.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      That exact thing happens in the UK. https://www.sundaypost.com/news/uk-news/school-places-withdrawn-after-scores-of-parents-caught-lying/ https://www.sundaypost.com/news/uk-news/school-places-withdr... For purposes of going to secondary school, I was raised Catholic. Slightly more completed my case as although my dad was an atheist, my mum thought she was taking it seriously (given how many New Age books and Hindu icons and statues she had, I don’t count her as a proper Catholic).
    - roel_v 8y ago
      Well just the last week, the Dutch highest administrative court ruled that Pastafarianism is not a real religion. Do you at least see why (you don't have to agree, just understand)?
      - Retric 8y ago
        I can understand the reasoning. However, that ruling does not apply to the US. It’s something of a cultural identity issue in the US. Mocking religious beliefs in the abstract is often acceptable, but mocking specific people is far less so.

matchagaucho 8y ago

How much of the responsibility falls on the Landlord, given they created the targeted ad segments? It's not like the Facebook Ad Manager has a guided wizard for the real estate industry to target prospective tenants.

jahewson 8y ago
Facebook knows exactly what kind of advertisers they have on their platform. https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes
- gt_ 8y ago
  This language is over the top. It elicits the coherency of what I’d describe as a full-time partial orgasm and nothing more. Here are some of the more offensive bits but you really have to click on the link to get full effect. “...strategic audience targeting and ads optimized for higher intent...” “...specific lookalike audience...” “...filtered out less qualified leads...” “...key employers... “...people with interests in real estate...” “...lookalike audiences consisting of people who are similar to its clients...”
sorokod 8y ago
It is not like there is a physical law of responsibility conservation. Multiple entities can carry 100% responsibility.
- extralego 8y ago
  Bless this comment. I think this is a succinct representation of the struggles we are facing as a society.
- rfugger 8y ago
  Like links in a chain, they are all required for the chain to hold.

swerveonem 8y ago

Facebook did this or housing companies used the Facebook targeting boolean option to configure ad campaigns in this way?

twblalock 8y ago
It doesn't really make a difference, because when housing companies use Facebook's targeting options it is still Facebook who accepts the ad and publishes it on facebook.com. If you do something illegal because someone asked you to do it, it's still illegal.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  It's not obvious to me. If I photocopy an ilegal ad at Kinko's, is it Kinko's fault? If I send an illegal ad via first class mail, is it USPS's fault?
  - thisiszilff 8y ago
    I don't think it's the ad, per say, but the agreement for delivery. It's be like you sending housing ads and asking USPS to only deliver them to men. USPS would probably be on the hook then as well. Back to your point though, it is a new domain because with your paper examples there is no one who can "undo" the illegal ad. You copy it at Kinko's and it's not like Kinko's is out there delivering it with you. With online platforms, they both Target and deliver these ads and are responsible for continually delivering them.
  - jahewson 8y ago
    What a dumb question. No, of course it’s not. If you ask USPS to display your illegal ad in their window then it certainly is their fault. That would be an actually comparable situation here.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Well, there was a criminal case against FedEx for delivering illegal prescriptions from Internet drug stores. But it got tossed.

tekromancr 8y ago

The geotargeting polygon was literally RED!?! I can believe that being an oversight, but holy Shit those optics... yikes

jahewson 8y ago
For those outside the US who may be wondering why this is so significant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
- EdwardDiego 8y ago
  Ah, thank you :)
- nasredin 8y ago
  >>In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices.
bumholio 8y ago
Redlining does not mean simply drawing red polygons on the map. To be guilty of redlining, Facebook must have known the ethnic/racial/religious composition of the excluded areas and it must have known that the advertisers were using the tools for discrimination. Quite a tall order.
- themarkn 8y ago
  I don't consider it a tall order, it's exactly what I'd expect advertisers to do with these tools, if there was no specific process to prevent them from doing so.
- tekromancr 8y ago
  This case hinges on three facts. First, displaying housing ads that exclude protected classes is illegal. Second is that Facebook built tools that allowed advertisers to create said illegal ads. Finally, Facebook had no oversight process to reject potentially illegal ads. The fact that Facebook created tools that allowed advertisers to effectively cause Facebook to break the law in an automated fashion isn't really much of a defense.

vt_throwaway123 8y ago

IANAL but it seems both from the comments here and common sense that the law only makes ad publishers liable for discriminatory ads, not advertising campaigns that target in a discriminatory way while advertisers are liable for both. Making publishers liable for the latter is also problematic and likely unprecedented because typically publishers do not have this information. Any given publisher only receives some portion of the entire advertising budget for the campaign and cannot possibly know how the rest of the budget is spent and whether the full campaign adds up to being discriminatory. For example, if you own a newspaper that caters to people of a specific national origin, are you not allowed to accept any housing ads? By definition, any ad placement on that newspaper is discriminatory in terms of targeting - without knowing the full details of the campaign, they cannot verify that the overall targeting is not discriminatory. This means that any law that makes publishers liable must be restricted to the content of the ads and any law that goes after the demographic targeting likely limits liability to the entity - the advertiser or perhaps agencies - who have full control and knowledge of the targeting in question. Does this make sense?