221–230 of 568 posts
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Sure, but if you think the law serves a purpose, then one may ask whether being technically compliant is success.
It's a start. They weren't even doing that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Council_of_San_Fe...
Worth reading the case to understand what FB is up against here.
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Is it more important that they "appear[] to be trying" than that the policy imposed on them actually achieve the ostensible policy goal?
For their legal case? I’d think so. It looks way better that you were trying to do something and weren’t very effective than that you decided not to bother. For their need to comply? No. They have to follow ineffective laws as long as they’re on the books.
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Compare to jobs. It’s ok to require candidates to speak a minority language iff that has something to do with the job. But it is not ok to require a specific age, gender or marital status. Landlord ads are more or less like job ads, in that sense.
These aren't requirements though; it's not like saying you must speak Italian to live here. It's more like advertising a job posting for a doctor in a medical journal instead of a car magazine.
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I’m sure their counsel knows exactly what they’re doing. Sometimes when you’re big and bad enough it’s worth it to take a gamble and see how things will settle in court. And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. People and cultures change and so should our regulation and laws.
> And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. ...what? Are you suggesting it's a good thing that we bring back red lining and other discriminatory practices?
Putting words into people's mouths like that is incredibly rude, and dishonest.
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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.
Knives have legal uses. In the context of housing ads (or employment) these tools DO NOT have legal uses. Thus they are illegal.
Targeting specific demographic using protected categories in other areas can be legal too.
As a pharmaceutical company you can target women, men, seniors for targeted medications. As a LGBTQ dating site you can target based on sexual orientation and cis/trans. It is not illegal. Housing and jobs (maybe something else) are covered by specific legislation.
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> I don’t see why it would matter if you chose not to advertise your non-pet friendly apartment complex to people who have pets. Unless someone can show that’s a pretty direct proxy to a protected class it seems fine. As a matter of fact, pet ownership is a strong proxy for a protected class [1]. Is your position that an apartment building owner should have to advertise to pet owners and non pet owners equally even i…
I didn’t know that. Well, if it meets whatever HUD/the courts’ threshold is for something that’s too discriminatory then maybe that’s off the list. I know that pet friendly and non-pet friendly housing exists, so there must be some legal basis. But if the current legal standard meant that it would be illegal to advertise to (or away from) pet owners then yes, I would expect that FB would have to remove those options…
A "no pets" policy, on its face, would have a disparate impact on different arms of a protected group, and so, on its face, should be illegal. I know that "no pets" policies tolerated at this point.
What I want to know is how you or anyone else can justify a "no pets" policy considering the protected group issue I raised above. Is the "no pets" policy just an unprincipled exception [1]?
I see no explanation for allowing "no pets" policies other than "yeah, 'no pets' amounts to illegal discrimination, but everyone does it, so it's okay". That's not a good basis on which to organize a society. Why or why not shouldn't people make another unprincipled exception for ad targeting?
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/04/a-series-of-unprinciple...
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 o…
What about housing ad posted only in places like whole foods or a particular newspaper. I know my previous landlady did this.
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I’m sure their counsel knows exactly what they’re doing. Sometimes when you’re big and bad enough it’s worth it to take a gamble and see how things will settle in court. And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. People and cultures change and so should our regulation and laws.
> And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. ...what? Are you suggesting it's a good thing that we bring back red lining and other discriminatory practices?
The Internet has a great search for secret closet racists, but they're pretty rare. For the most part, it makes sense to give people the benefit of the doubt.