HUD Files Complaint Alleging Facebook Ad Tools Allow Housing Discrimination (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has filed an official discrimination complaint against Facebook, saying the site's dizzying array of advertising tools makes it simple for advertisers to illegally exclude wide swathes of the population from seeing housing ads, Politico wrote on Friday. In a press release, HUD wrote that Facebook's "targeted advertising" model more or less constitutes a way for said advertisers to skirt the federal Fair Housing Act, specifically by excluding members of protected categories: "HUD claims Facebook enables advertisers to control which users receive housing-related ads based upon the recipient's race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, and/or zip code. Facebook then invites advertisers to express unlawful preferences by offering discriminatory options, allowing them to effectively limit housing options for these protected classes under the guise of 'targeted advertising.'"

Specific examples cited by HUD included showing display ads "either only to men or women," as well as preventing users flagged as interested in disabilities-related topics like "assistance dog" or "accessibility" from seeing display ads. HUD also said that the targeted advertising tool can be used to prevent people interested in specific religions or regions from seeing ads, as well as "draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes." The complaint is just a complaint, but it does start an official process that will either end in Facebook reaching a resolution with federal officials or a lawsuit. CNN Tech notes that the National Fair Housing Alliance is simultaneously suing Facebook for the same reason. "Facebook is trying to dismiss the suit by claiming it has limited liability for user-generated content, though HUD and federal prosecutors claim the site operates as an internet content provider with respect to housing ads and therefore is subject to civil rights law," reports Gizmodo.

Comments

Re:chump change

[ooloorie]

Your lie is a lie, you are just claiming the government is there to do, only what YOU want it to do.

No, I'm claiming what is fact: that the US government is a government of limited, enumerated powers. That is the kind of government that people agreed to under the articles of confederation.

The government is there to do what ever the people want it to do.

Not the US government. The US government is explicitly one of enumerated, limited powers. In most areas, it is constitutionally constrained not to do what the people want it to do.

I want big government, I want massive government, I want a government that incorporates every citizen into it's structure and seeks to represent and ensures their voices are heard and their desires from government are sought to be met. I want a huge representative government of the many, not some tiny authoritarian government of the minority, oppressing the majority.

Look, we agree that we have a problem: many American corporations are like fiefdoms and are in cahoots with corrupt politicians. Coca Cola or Apple can't oppress you; they don't have the guns or goons to do it. All oppression of the majority necessarily originates with the government. That's why the solution to the oppression of the majority is not, as you suggest, to give corrupt, oppressive politicians even more power, it is to strip them of power and thereby remove their power to oppress.

It is people like you who are responsible for the increasing oppression of the majority because you want to ever increase the power of the oppressors. You are useful fools and tools for the oppressors and you are so easily manipulated.

I want tiny corporations of course, no company to be valued over say a billion dollars, else they lose they limited liability status, can go over a billion but all investors are fully liable for all debts, simply to much to risk for the rest of the community otherwise.

Straight out of the 25 Point Program.