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

Trump will probably stamp this out

[satsuke]

Trump's administration will probably stamp out this complaint pretty quickly, or do some overreaching executive order to do the same.

No that's not a good thing.

apply it consistently then

[ooloorie]

The WaPo and NYT readership is overwhelmingly white and wealthy. If you advertise there, you are making a choice to exclude minorities and poor people. So, if the new principle is that advertising needs to target people equally, we need to impose the same rules on WaPo and NYT.

Re:chump change

[ooloorie]

It is a societal goal to make sure that harmony and opportunity are available to people who live in a country. Government is responsible for the 2nd goal, because people's individual desires tend to compete with societal desires.

The idea that government is responsible for binding together people into a harmonious whole is one particular view of government, and one that only a minority of people share.

The classically liberal view of government is that it should provide protection of life, liberty, and property against aggression, nothing more. It isn't there to make people like each other, or give them opportunities, or anything else.

Furthermore, the "competition" you see is non-existent. In fact, combining individual desires through a free market is the best way ever found of "making sure that harmony and opportunity are available to people who live in a country".

And frankly, government is failing in its job / losing ground in the fight for its purpose in this technology age. Either because our state / federal governments are paralyzed by anger from everyone in a post-boom economy, or that simply technology companies move too fast and are trying to displace the functions of government in its absence.

If you look at history, government has never been any good at achieving these goals. If you want prosperity, opportunity, and peaceful coexistence, minimal government is the best choice.