Is complaining against Facebook the new black ?
HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
231–240 of 568 posts
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not preventing people from doing something illegal is not itself illegal?
That's not the legal test to determine if someone is afoul of the legal test that Facebook is accused of violating. The wording of the provision they've run afoul of is elsewhere in the thread; it disagrees with you. My point is more along the lines of Legal needed to be asleep at the wheel to let a team put together a solution where you literally draw a red line around zip codes to exclude them .
Sure, it's just kind of a longstanding concept. If I've found the provision you're referencing (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17790555), then it's a bit disingenuous to assert Faceboot is automatically in its scope, when it's this status as a conduit versus editor that is the very thing we're grappling with.
As has been explained elsewhere in this thread, there are legitimate uses for selecting specific areas at the level of zip codes. Sure, we could hope for Faceboot to do a better implementation based on some intelligence, but that would be asking for a positive action.
But by all means, don't let any sort of nuance get in the way of today's two-minute hate! I'm sure all those racists that are about to hit a speed bump will be deeply reconsidering their views.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Are you seriously comparing advertising job openings to doctors with advertising apartments to only people of a certain race? You can’t just parameterize “x” and call it an argument.
A better comparison is advertising in a catholic newspaper. Is that a discrimination toward non catholics? It’s a bit of a stretch.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#234In most verticals marketers will have a set of ads for different demographics: say gay, suburban, latino, black, Spanish-speaking, etc. Each of those campaigns will have different creative: for example, a real estate ad targeted to latinos will have an image showing a smiling latino couple. I can understand why the marketer would not want to show this creative to white, black, or asians -- given that they're targeting creative for a different group of people. This sort of practice seems fairly benign -- it's not about denying housing, but about targeting creative for different subgroups.
As a gay person, I see this all over the web. Smiling happy gay people buying cars or real estate or whatever. I imagine that behind each of these ads straight people have been de-selected for seeing this ad. But that doesn't mean these advertisers hate straight people or would deny a straight customer. It just means that for that specific ad and creative they were targeting gay people.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#235Earlier 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.
That (and other replies elsewhere here) answer it perfectly, thank you.
At the very least Facebook could provide section-specific filter, if they haven’t already.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#236I 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…
Bras and strollers are not essentials for living. Housing is. That's why Fair Housing laws, and not "fair marketing" laws exist.
> what we want to prevent, isn't landlords who can target only some group, but landlords who _do_.
Sort of. Landlords will always, intentionally or unintentionally, target one group or the other, simply because they can't advertise literally everywhere. The important things are that the contents of the ads aren't discriminatory against protected classes, and they can in theory be seen by anyone who buys the right paper or sees the handbill or billboard or TV ad. FB's targeting appears to remove the possibility of equality of opportunity to view the ads. There's never a reason to allow filtering by protected classes on housing ads, so FB shouldn't have ever provided it as a feature whether directly or indirectly.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#237A question if you run ads and tune your ad buy to focus on those people with the highest conversion rate. To reduce the amount you're spending by targeting the ads, does this mean that's not allowed? It looks like this is to ensure advertisement reaches all protected categories. Can this mean that one would be forced to advertise in magazines that cater to different audiences? To guarantee a certain subset of the pop…
The issue is not focusing on demographics, it’s excluding demographics. The law states you cannot exclude certain demographics. Facebook is allowing that.
Nothing is preventing an atheist from reading a Christian magazine, or some non-expected audience member from reading an ad targeted at a general audience. The problem is when you control the viewers on an individual level, as Facebook does.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Are you seriously comparing advertising job openings to doctors with advertising apartments to only people of a certain race? You can’t just parameterize “x” and call it an argument.
[deleted]
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
No. Because anyone can buy the WSJ and Teen Vogue and see the ad.
If you're excluded from being targeted by an FB ad you have no chance of seeing it. If that exclusion criteria forms the basis of a protected class and the ad in question relates to housing, that's illegal. So it's a very narrow set of behaviors that are wrong here, not all of ad targeting.
E.g. it's probably not illegal (or even morally wrong) to exclude someone who is interested in topics such as "Hinduism" from ads for beef jerky. Even though religion is a protected class, beef jerky isn't housing.
Similarly, it's (probably) not wrong to exclude low-income people from ads for your high-end condo because AFAIK income isn't a protected class.
Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you seriously comparing advertising job openings to doctors with advertising apartments to only people of a certain race? You can’t just parameterize “x” and call it an argument.
A better comparison is advertising in a catholic newspaper. Is that a discrimination toward non catholics? It’s a bit of a stretch.
Is it not discrimination if there are 2 people reading the same catholic newspaper and one does not see the ad because she is female?