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HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

hud.gov

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Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#121

Post by eahman00 »

samfisher83 wrote: post #49

These are the specific points they are going after: -display housing ads either only to men or women; -not show ads to Facebook users interested in an "assistance dog," "mobility scooter," "accessibility" or "deaf culture"; -not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in "child care" or "parenting," or show ads only to users with children above a specified age; -to display/not display ads to users w…

>to display/not display ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in a particular place of worship, religion or tenet, such as the "Christian Church," "Sikhism," "Hinduism," or the "Bible."

It says "such as"; I'm interested if this list includes "synagogue" or "Torah". Is there any place the entire list is included?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#122

Post by AdamM12 »

jjeaff wrote: post #115
mynegation wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There isn't a law on the books prohibiting hardware stores from selling knives. There is a law on the books prohibiting publishers from publishing descriminitory ads, even if they didn't write them. That's the difference.

The difference is that the law shouldn't even be on the books imo. The person discriminating is the private property owner/manager they engaged in the advertising. Facebook did not.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#124

Post by maym86 »

quotemstr wrote: post #116
maym86 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what about your argument means they shouldn't handle the explicit descrimination cases on their platform better? Just because there might be a fuzzy case in they future why shouldn't they handle the clear cases now? FYI these are the specific points they are going after: -display housing ads either only to men or women; -not show ads to Facebook users interested in an "assistance dog," "mobility scooter," "accessi…

A lot of really bad policy gets enacted because advocates don't honestly ask themselves, "What are the foreseeable consequences of the policy I'm advocating?" That is, a failure to ask the question "And then what?" results in a lot of unnecessary misery. Your comment essentially restates the HUD's complaint. It doesn't engage with my discussion of the fundamental incompatibility of the HUD's regulatory regime and ad…

My point was your premise is making up imaginary scenarios that aren't actually happening as a way of creating an issue with the clear problems outlined and this isn't helpful.

Creating an imaginary general problem as a way of attacking the specific issue is disingenuous.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#126

Post by dnautics »

austincheney wrote: post #31

Here are the likely relevant laws in question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 By law you cannot discriminate by any designation of protected class, which includes not only parties to a business transaction but also messaging and opportunities there upon. I do understand why Facebook would allow ad display filtering by race and other demographi…

Of course Facebook should allow racial filtering. Not understanding this is a fundamental failure to understand minority businesses. Let's say hypothetically you're selling a product that is highly ethnically selected, like beauty products (before any criticism keep in mind that the first self made American female millionaire, cj walker made her fortune on beauty products) - should you be forced to buy advertising impressions for the majority that has no use for your product? Basically this would create a huge disadvantage/drag to minority entrepreneurs seeking to capitalize on a niche market and grow.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#127

Post by AdamM12 »

Maybestring wrote: post #114
AdamM12 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They should. Allowing large commercial entities to facilitilate discrimination and only going after individual landlords would be an extremely inefficient use of limited resources.

The inefficiency of the process shouldn't be a deciding factor. Should be the justness of it. Facebook isn't discriminating. We don't punish shipping companies when their resources are used for drug smuggling. We punish the individuals involved in the illicit act.

edit: Not entirely sure how arguing that our system should be a just one more so than one that goes after what is easiest is getting down voted so much but ok.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#128

Post by emilfihlman »

maratd wrote: post #108
nv-vn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it is reasonable to say that everyone should agree that if there are rules they should be universally applied What happens if the rules are bad rules? E.g. if it's illegal for Facebook to allow advertisements for marijuana dispensaries on a federal level? Clearly that's not something we'd want to see universally applied.

What exactly is your argument? That if there's a bad law on the books, we shouldn't have laws?

Or perhaps that if the law is bad, we should engage in civil disobedience.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#129

Post by plicense »

sigfubar wrote: post #123

-

Lol what? There are good talented engineers at Facebook who work on things entirely different from ads personalization and you want to penalize them too? And what makes you decide it's the engineers who are at fault for how Facebook displays ads?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#130

Post by maxerickson »

austincheney wrote: post #111
maxerickson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So? Are the ads in the selected publication forcefully shown to a person otherwise not choosing to read the publication or forcefully denied from a person choosing to read the publication? Discrimination, in this regard, only occurs if somebody is made to consume or is denied content on the basis of a protected class status.

So you didn't really address it in that sense in your other comment.

I guess I don't see how ad targeting involves force either (it just happens to be effective), but whatever.

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