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It stops at the product, no? It seems more acceptable to target advertisements for toys than housing.

quotemstr 8y ago
Should Facebook be liable for allowing an advertiser to target a housing ad at people with preferences for organic food?
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Our legal system will not hold Facebook liable for a case like that. Should?? Like how things ought to be with the world? Facebook shouldn't even know who prefers organic food. There should be nothing tying that preference to any other aspect of people's lives. Facebook should be more like Reddit where people can have whatever accounts they want and can interact on organic food topics without identifying themselves or tying that preference to other interests. Or maybe Facebook should have an explicit opt-in for users to choose what they're okay with being used for ads… … should? everyone should use an adblocker and block Facebook's ads. Also, Facebook should offer a service where you can choose to portray yourself as whatever mix of qualities you want to set for each time you search for something. So anyone should be able to see what the algorithm delivers for a set of characteristics they can adjust at will… Also, I should stop procrastinating on HN
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    > Our legal system will not hold Facebook liable for a case like that. I have to disagree with you on that. I'd put money on targeting a housing advertisement toward someone with a preference for organic food to be ruled discriminatory within five years. It's an unavoidable logical consequence of the logic driving today's complaint.
    - MBCook 8y ago
      The problem with your argument is FB doesn’t matter to your point. The law already exists if that will happen as you say, it will happen no matter what FB does. So why should FB get to ignore the law unlike thousands of other businesses? Why do they get an exception?
      - quotemstr 8y ago
        You are misrepresenting my position. Where did I suggest that FB get an exemption from the law? I never said that FB should get special treatment. For clarity, FB should follow the law and prohibit targeting of housing ads based on this list of criteria. My original point (which has now been downvoted into oblivion, presumably because it raises uncomfortable questions) is that we as an industry need to ask the question "What next?". We know that these regulations will not in fact stop housing discrimination and that more will follow. It's disappointing that we're unable to have a frank discussion of this subject, since it's important both legally and economically. All the responses in this thread have essentially been that we shouldn't ask "What next?" because the "next" part hasn't happened yet. That's just ostrich-in-sand thinking.
        MBCook 8y ago
        > We know that these regulations will not in fact stop housing discrimination We don’t know that. I imagine if that was true it would have been proved clearly in the last 40 years. But the law still exists. I’ve not aware of attempts to repeal it. > and that more will follow. Again, we’ve had 40 years for this. So many people in this thread arguing against HUD seem to be trying to argue like this law is something new, like a soda tax, that has very little history or case law. Where the best we can do is hypotheticals. That’s not the case. > It's disappointing that we're unable to have a frank discussion of this subject I find it scary that we’re having a discussion. As I see it the story is ‘FB refuses to comply with 40 year old law’, and there are a lot of people arguing they don’t like the idea behind the law so why should they? Because it’s a 40 year old law. It’s been to the Supreme Court at least once (2015). You don’t get to choose to ignore it because you don’t like it and then get mad when the government tried to punish you for it. > All the responses in this thread have essentially been that we shouldn't ask "What next?" because the "next" part hasn't happened yet FHA was 1968. So 50 years, not 40. We have 50 years of ‘next’ to look at. > That's just ostrich-in-sand thinking. What is ignoring 50 years of impact and acting like we don’t know how the law would be enforced? Again? My read of this story was purely as a ‘tech giant decides to ignore he law because they can get away with it’ and had nothing to do with the law in question. I should have expected HN to see it as ‘poor company bullied by law that theoretically may be problematic based on someone’s beliefs’. I’ve been here far long enough. I should have known. But I didn’t. I looked at the thread. Sigh.
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      I don't buy your argument in the slightest. Slippery slopes exist, but the whole point legally is to NOT allow us to go down such slopes. The law defines the (fuzzy) lines. Once it seems to be slipping down a slope, there will be a point where the law (judges) will stop slipping. If there's an organic restaurant or grocer in a neighborhood, it makes sense to market to those who prefer organic food. There's nothing stopping anyone of any race or background from preferring organic food other than price or education/awareness etc. Short of laws that ban targeted advertising in general, there will never be a law saying that you can't target people with some consumer preference. If you tried to avoid black folks by not showing an ad to people who like stereotypical black consumer products, you'd be more likely to get away with it. There would be some burden of proof that you were doing this as a proxy for the protected class. The core point is that our laws are more likely to have effective loopholes that undermine the actual intention than to have slippery slopes that take the intention and go way too far with it.
- jogjayr 8y ago
  No. Because a preference for organic food isn't a protected class.
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    What if it correlates with protected group membership, like zip code does?
    - jogjayr 8y ago
      That's a hypothetical question. Does it really correlate with protected group memberships?
      - quotemstr 8y ago
        > Does it really correlate with protected group memberships? Yes: "the vast majority of families (73%) who buy organic describe themselves as white" [1] Now, you might say, "Okay then. Let's prohibit ad targeting by food preference." But the trouble is that there are hundreds of factors that correlate with protected group membership. Are you going to ban them all? [1] https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/03/Who-buys-organic-and-where-is-evolving https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/03/Who-buy...
        TimothyBJacobs 8y ago
        Yes. Disable micro targeting four housing ad listings.
        jogjayr 8y ago
        > But the trouble is that there are hundreds of factors that correlate with protected group membership. Are you going to ban them all? It's a tough question to answer. I believe you were debating me about the use of ZIP code as a proxy in another comment thread so I'll touch on that also. If it's found that organic food preference is systemically being used as a proxy for a protected class, as ZIP code has been in the past, then it might end up being banned. By following this process could you end up with a list of hundreds of banned factors? In theory yes, but in practice it seems unlikely, just because of how long it would take to study each factor and go through the process of adding it to a banned list. It took a long time for redlining to be made illegal. The article you provided says that organic food preference is gradually starting to mirror the general population, so if current trends continue it eventually won't be useful as a signal for race-based discrimination. Furthermore unlike redlining, there's no vicious circle of "I eat non-organic food -> I can't get a loan to buy organic food -> I have to continue eating non-organic food". By the time you had enough data to decide whether discrimination based on a particular factor constitutes de facto discrimination against a protected class, that correlation might have ceased to exist.

Should Facebook be liable for allowing an advertiser to target a housing ad at people with preferences for organic food?

quadrangle 8y ago
Our legal system will not hold Facebook liable for a case like that. Should?? Like how things ought to be with the world? Facebook shouldn't even know who prefers organic food. There should be nothing tying that preference to any other aspect of people's lives. Facebook should be more like Reddit where people can have whatever accounts they want and can interact on organic food topics without identifying themselves or tying that preference to other interests. Or maybe Facebook should have an explicit opt-in for users to choose what they're okay with being used for ads… … should? everyone should use an adblocker and block Facebook's ads. Also, Facebook should offer a service where you can choose to portray yourself as whatever mix of qualities you want to set for each time you search for something. So anyone should be able to see what the algorithm delivers for a set of characteristics they can adjust at will… Also, I should stop procrastinating on HN
- quotemstr 8y ago
  > Our legal system will not hold Facebook liable for a case like that. I have to disagree with you on that. I'd put money on targeting a housing advertisement toward someone with a preference for organic food to be ruled discriminatory within five years. It's an unavoidable logical consequence of the logic driving today's complaint.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    The problem with your argument is FB doesn’t matter to your point. The law already exists if that will happen as you say, it will happen no matter what FB does. So why should FB get to ignore the law unlike thousands of other businesses? Why do they get an exception?
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      You are misrepresenting my position. Where did I suggest that FB get an exemption from the law? I never said that FB should get special treatment. For clarity, FB should follow the law and prohibit targeting of housing ads based on this list of criteria. My original point (which has now been downvoted into oblivion, presumably because it raises uncomfortable questions) is that we as an industry need to ask the question "What next?". We know that these regulations will not in fact stop housing discrimination and that more will follow. It's disappointing that we're unable to have a frank discussion of this subject, since it's important both legally and economically. All the responses in this thread have essentially been that we shouldn't ask "What next?" because the "next" part hasn't happened yet. That's just ostrich-in-sand thinking.
      - MBCook 8y ago
        > We know that these regulations will not in fact stop housing discrimination We don’t know that. I imagine if that was true it would have been proved clearly in the last 40 years. But the law still exists. I’ve not aware of attempts to repeal it. > and that more will follow. Again, we’ve had 40 years for this. So many people in this thread arguing against HUD seem to be trying to argue like this law is something new, like a soda tax, that has very little history or case law. Where the best we can do is hypotheticals. That’s not the case. > It's disappointing that we're unable to have a frank discussion of this subject I find it scary that we’re having a discussion. As I see it the story is ‘FB refuses to comply with 40 year old law’, and there are a lot of people arguing they don’t like the idea behind the law so why should they? Because it’s a 40 year old law. It’s been to the Supreme Court at least once (2015). You don’t get to choose to ignore it because you don’t like it and then get mad when the government tried to punish you for it. > All the responses in this thread have essentially been that we shouldn't ask "What next?" because the "next" part hasn't happened yet FHA was 1968. So 50 years, not 40. We have 50 years of ‘next’ to look at. > That's just ostrich-in-sand thinking. What is ignoring 50 years of impact and acting like we don’t know how the law would be enforced? Again? My read of this story was purely as a ‘tech giant decides to ignore he law because they can get away with it’ and had nothing to do with the law in question. I should have expected HN to see it as ‘poor company bullied by law that theoretically may be problematic based on someone’s beliefs’. I’ve been here far long enough. I should have known. But I didn’t. I looked at the thread. Sigh.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    I don't buy your argument in the slightest. Slippery slopes exist, but the whole point legally is to NOT allow us to go down such slopes. The law defines the (fuzzy) lines. Once it seems to be slipping down a slope, there will be a point where the law (judges) will stop slipping. If there's an organic restaurant or grocer in a neighborhood, it makes sense to market to those who prefer organic food. There's nothing stopping anyone of any race or background from preferring organic food other than price or education/awareness etc. Short of laws that ban targeted advertising in general, there will never be a law saying that you can't target people with some consumer preference. If you tried to avoid black folks by not showing an ad to people who like stereotypical black consumer products, you'd be more likely to get away with it. There would be some burden of proof that you were doing this as a proxy for the protected class. The core point is that our laws are more likely to have effective loopholes that undermine the actual intention than to have slippery slopes that take the intention and go way too far with it.
jogjayr 8y ago
No. Because a preference for organic food isn't a protected class.
- quotemstr 8y ago
  What if it correlates with protected group membership, like zip code does?
  - jogjayr 8y ago
    That's a hypothetical question. Does it really correlate with protected group memberships?
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      > Does it really correlate with protected group memberships? Yes: "the vast majority of families (73%) who buy organic describe themselves as white" [1] Now, you might say, "Okay then. Let's prohibit ad targeting by food preference." But the trouble is that there are hundreds of factors that correlate with protected group membership. Are you going to ban them all? [1] https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/03/Who-buys-organic-and-where-is-evolving https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/03/Who-buy...
      - TimothyBJacobs 8y ago
        Yes. Disable micro targeting four housing ad listings.
      - jogjayr 8y ago
        > But the trouble is that there are hundreds of factors that correlate with protected group membership. Are you going to ban them all? It's a tough question to answer. I believe you were debating me about the use of ZIP code as a proxy in another comment thread so I'll touch on that also. If it's found that organic food preference is systemically being used as a proxy for a protected class, as ZIP code has been in the past, then it might end up being banned. By following this process could you end up with a list of hundreds of banned factors? In theory yes, but in practice it seems unlikely, just because of how long it would take to study each factor and go through the process of adding it to a banned list. It took a long time for redlining to be made illegal. The article you provided says that organic food preference is gradually starting to mirror the general population, so if current trends continue it eventually won't be useful as a signal for race-based discrimination. Furthermore unlike redlining, there's no vicious circle of "I eat non-organic food -> I can't get a loan to buy organic food -> I have to continue eating non-organic food". By the time you had enough data to decide whether discrimination based on a particular factor constitutes de facto discrimination against a protected class, that correlation might have ceased to exist.