HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#11

Post by mindslight » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

abraham_lincoln wrote: post #7

mindslight wrote: post #3

We all knew that creating/adopting centralized communication platforms ("Web 2.0") was going to end badly, but that was where the money (temporarily) was. Now that they've taken over our culture, it's not surprising that every small time censor is showing up with their demands. (Also, as we're going through an $ideology-scare, a disclaimer: I'm not criticizing the ultimate goal of anti-discrimination housing laws, no…

How is it futile to comply with the law and not help facilitate discrimination? Reminiscent of IBM's history.

The communication middlemen make their profits by being scalable - surveilling users for a few bucks each doesn't add up to much otherwise. Policing speech is not scalable - hence now trying to bolt on the bare minimum after the fact using low paid workers.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#12

Post by beager » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

It would seem fairly straightforward for Facebook to collect information about whether an advertisement pertains to something that has anti-discriminatory regulations tied to it (housing, employment).

I generally agree that FB should not be allowed to permit users to segment these types of advertisements by the dimensions claimed. However, what piques my curiosity here is whether “indirect” discrimination in choice of advertising medium constitutes discriminatory practice.

For instance, what if some of these advertisers, instead of segmenting directly by race to target whites only, targeted fans of pages that were obviously but not specifically comprised of whites (e.g., “Irish American Heritage” or “Blonde Hair Tips”). Would there be a case to be made for discrimination? And against whom?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#13

Post by koenigdavidmj » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#14

Post by burkaman » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

RightMillennial wrote: post #9

> The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions including print and online advertisement on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status. Emphasis mine. If the FHA does indeed prohibit online advertisement discriminating on those criteria, this sounds pretty damning to Facebook. Those are some of the key features of Facebook ads.

https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2 Sec. 804 (c):

> 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 based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.

This clearly covers online or any other kind of ad.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#15

Post by astura » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

0x00000000 wrote: post #6

>and/or zip code. >effectively limit housing options for these protected classes I have head of zip code being protected or personally identifiable information but never a protected class Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to discrimination against people over the age of 40.

>Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to discrimination against people over the age of 40.

In employment law, not housing law.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#16

Post by koboll » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #13

Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.

What about this complaint would prevent Facebook from addressing it without humans involved? All they're going to do is revoke microtargeting abilities from housing ads.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#17

Post by google_censors » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

IBM wrote: post #4

Here's the ProPublica stories that led to this https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers... https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-disc...

ProPublica really did an amazing job of sticking with this, considering that HUD knew what was happening and still dropped the investigation in 2016.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#18

Post by sincerely » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #13

Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.

On the other hand, this doesn't seem like an issue of algorithms at all.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#19

Post by sincerely » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #5

h4b4n3r0 wrote: post #2

I was skeptical, but upon reading TFA, they do have a point.

Yeah, although it seems mostly to be by accident: you can target you facebook ads to whatever group you want, so your bra sales only target women, or your stroller offers only target people with smaller children. Personally I think the law is bullshit: what is interesting, and what we want to prevent, isn't landlords who can target only some group, but landlords who _do_. But I guess facebook makes for an interesting…

Maybe there's something inherently wrong with targeted ads...

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#20

Post by JamisonM » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #13

Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.

I think that the public and the courts are correctly recognizing that the excuse that a human never sees something doesn't exempt an organization of the regulatory burden borne by companies where the work is done proportionally more by humans.

If Facebook, Google, et. al want to run advertising companies they have to properly conduct themselves in the current regulatory environment, if their competitive advantage really just boils down to the fact that they are ignoring the rules then there should be a market correction based on them being subject to actual enforcement.

(This is separate from how anyone feels about the actual rules, I think it is reasonable to say that everyone should agree that if there are rules they should be universally applied.)