Facebook Users Sue Over Alleged Racial Discrimination In Housing, Job Ads (arstechnica.com)

In response to a report from ProPublica alleging that Facebook gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls "Ethnic Affinities," three Facebook users have filed a lawsuit against the company. They are accusing the social networking giant of violating the Federal Housing Act of 1964 over its alleged discriminatory policies. Ars Technica reports: ProPublica managed to post an ad placed in Facebook's housing categories that excluded anyone with an "affinity" for African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic people. When the ProPublica reporters showed the ad to prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he described it as "horrifying" and "as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find." According to the proposed class-action lawsuit, by allowing such ads on its site, Facebook is in violation of the landmark civil rights legislation, which specifically prohibits housing advertisements to discriminate based on race, gender, color, religion, and other factors. "This lawsuit does not seek to end Facebook's Ad Platform, nor even to get rid of the "Exclude People" mechanism. There are legal, desirable uses for such functionalities. Plaintiffs seek to end only the illegal proscribed uses of these functions," the lawyers wrote in the civil complaint, which was filed last Friday. The proposed class, if approved by a federal judge in San Francisco, would include any Facebook user in the United States who has "not seen an employment- or housing-related advertisement on Facebook within the last two years because the ad's buyer used the Ad Platform's 'Exclude People' functionality to exclude the class member based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin."

Comments

Re:You knew this was coming

[ooloorie]

The law states you can't do this for certain kinds of advertisements, like housing, employment and some financial services. I hardly think it's "SJW"s only who feel that job advertisements shouldn't omit certain ethnicities.

You aren't paying attention. ProPublica is complaining about ad targeting. Translated into the real world, that means that if you place an ad in the East Hampton Star, you also need to place it on Black Entertainment Network. That's obviously ridiculous. Advertisers frequently target specific demographics. The law only requires that the ads themselves don't discriminate (and even that is more political posturing than effective public policy).