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HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

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Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#81

Post by quotemstr »

sincerely wrote: post #19
tomjen3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Is it inherently wrong to publish an ad in the Wall Street Journal and not then publish the same ad in Teen Vogue?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#82

Post by freeone3000 »

quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

It doesn't expose me to relevant ads. I live in Montreal. My last three twitter ads were for a drug (reported as illegal) something about a new york lawsuit against an oil company? And for a pizza place which doesn't exist in my country.

User targeted ads do not produce better ads, despite everyone selling ads saying so.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#83

Post by quotemstr »

freeone3000 wrote: post #82
quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

It doesn't expose me to relevant ads. I live in Montreal. My last three twitter ads were for a drug (reported as illegal) something about a new york lawsuit against an oil company? And for a pizza place which doesn't exist in my country. User targeted ads do not produce better ads, despite everyone selling ads saying so.

Am I supposed to accept your anecdote as evidence? I mean, on the one hand, we have the massive and continued success of platforms that tailor ads to target audiences, and on the other, we have freeone3000's complaint about a pizza ad not being relevant.

Ad targeting works. That's a fact. You can argue that we should kill ad targeting anyway, that's fine. You can make that case, and I'd disagree. But to flatly deny that ad targeting works? That's adopting a private set of alternative facts, and if you do that, we can't have a conversation.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#84

Post by maym86 »

quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

Why do people always go on to the abstract cases when we are discussing a specific example?

> Where exactly does it stop?

It stops in cases when it's not protected and not breaking the law. Housing and job adverts cannot be explicitly descriminatory. It's a clear existing law. There is a clear line. You have to do your best and take precautions to avoid descrimination. When a platform doesn't do that then there's a problem.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#85

Post by maxerickson »

austincheney wrote: post #66
briandear wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question would be if an advertiser advertised housing in a demographically targeted publication, for example, a publication focused only on single gay men, if that would necessarily function as discrimination since single mothers wouldn’t be reading that publication, nor those ads. Facebook allows demographic targeting that just happens to be more “effective,” but no more discriminatory that the way conventional t…

I find those to be distinctly different qualities even if the end result is similar. The distinguishing factor is: Who is performing the discrimination? In one example the discrimination is deliberately performed by an ad supplier. In the other example the discrimination is performed by the audience of the offline publication. I come to this conclusion because it is the audience that is choosing which demographically…

In the example, the building owner/manager isn't randomly choosing a publication to put their ad in. They are acting to discriminate against people that don't (or are merely highly unlikely to) read the magazine.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#86

Post by mynegation »

AdamM12 wrote: post #64

Why is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it. Government overreach imo. Edit: grammatical mistakes

Rhetorical or not, this question deserves to be upvoted more.

How is it different from hardware store that sell knives that can be used to cut vegetables or people, at the discretion of the buyer?

Maybe a better way to deal with that is a different regulation. Mandate the industry designation in the ad and if it is something protected by existing laws, like housing or job ads, remove filters that allow for adding or removing by protected category from the interface.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#87

Post by TangoTrotFox »

burkaman wrote: post #14
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, limita…

Looks like if this goes to trial it's all going to hinge on exactly what "To publish an advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling, with an intention to make a preference based on race, color, ..." means. To me that seems quite clearly to refer to the ad itself - that the ad cannot make a preference, implicitly or explicitly, for any group. However, who the ad is shown to would seem to be another issue altogether.

If this applies even in who the ads is shown to, think about the implications. What if I run an ad in e.g. "Golf Digest Weekly"? Would that be unlawful for that publication to actually publish? What if I place a billboard in a high income area? Is the billboard renter liable? Is my ad unlawful? If I place a for-sale sign in the yard of a vacant house in a high-end neighborhood, is that unlawful as well?

I'd like to think the HUD has thought out their case and it's implications, but I don't see how you can take their interpretation of this law without practically destroying all housing ads - which is clearly not their intent. So I'm very anxious to see how this plays out in court!

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#88

Post by james-mcelwain »

quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

The FHA is a 50 year old law. Facebook isn't getting in trouble for offering targeted advertising, they're getting in trouble for allowing explicit discrimination on the basis of sex and ethnicity. This has nothing to do with correlations.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#89

Post by quotemstr »

maym86 wrote: post #84
quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

Why do people always go on to the abstract cases when we are discussing a specific example? > Where exactly does it stop? It stops in cases when it's not protected and not breaking the law. Housing and job adverts cannot be explicitly descriminatory. It's a clear existing law. There is a clear line. You have to do your best and take precautions to avoid descrimination. When a platform doesn't do that then there's a p…

> It stops in cases when it's not protected and not breaking the law.

Since we're discussing the scenarios that the law might cover, your claim seems rather circular.

> It's a clear existing law. There is a clear line.

The entire point of my post is that the line isn't neat and clear at all. Very similar concerns come up in various other contexts, and we as a society are going to have to deal with the internal contradictions of current orthodox thinking one way or another, and probably soon.

Your comment is just asserting that the problem I described doesn't exist. It does. Wishing away reality doesn't make it disappear.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#90

Post by AdamM12 »

astura wrote: post #77
AdamM12 wrote: post #64

Why is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it. Government overreach imo. Edit: grammatical mistakes

They are enforcing this part of the FHA (emphasis mine): >(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, limitat…

Can't believe you bothered to track down and post this on both my comments lol. Wasn't aware of that part of it. Also just because they can do that doesn't mean they should.

Edit: Not sure why this got flagged. I acknowledged that I was unaware of that provision. Simply stated that I thought it was mildly humorous they commented the same thing on both of my comments.

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