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Facebook Still Lets Housing Advertisers Exclude Users By Race (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo writes: In February, Facebook said it would step up enforcement of its prohibition against discrimination in advertising for housing, employment, or credit. Last week, ProPublica bought dozens of rental housing ads on Facebook but asked that they not be shown to certain categories of users, such as African-Americans,mothers of high school kids, people interested in wheelchair ramps, Jews, expats from Argentina, and Spanish speakers. All of these groups are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act. Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines. Every single ad was approved within minutes. The only ad that took longer than three minutes to be approved by Facebook sought to exclude potential renters 'interested in Islam, Sunni Islam, and Shia Islam.' It was approved after 22 minutes.
The Fair Housing act begs to differ: https://www.hud.gov/sites/docu...
Folks can debate whether it should or should not be a law all they want, but the issue of legality is pretty clear.
The Act very clearly covers advertising as well in section 109.5
109.5 Policy.
It is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing
throughout the United States. The provisions of the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3600, et seq.)
make it unlawful to discriminate in the sale, rental, and financing of housing, and in the provision
of brokerage and appraisal services, because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status,
or national origin. Section 804(c) of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3604(c), as amended, makes
it unlawful 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 because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial
status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.
However, the prohibitions of the act regarding familial status do not apply with respect to housing
for older persons, as defined in section 807(b) of the act.