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HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

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Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#301

Post by vageli »

EB66 wrote: post #46
dev_dull wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How do you think Uber and Airbnb became legal?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#302

Post by ThrustVectoring »

craigzucchini wrote: post #291
nostromo wrote: post #234

In 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 targetin…

I think the bigger problem, that you haven't addressed here, is the ongoing prevalence of the word "creative" used as a noun.

"creative" used as a noun is perfectly standard inside the advertising industry.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#304

Post by wavefunction »

trashcan wrote: post #296
trashcan wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act You can't choose to rent based on familial status.

I can't reply to you cabaalis, but the difference is excluding (discriminating) versus targeting. Targeting is legal, discriminating is not. As in the Alamo Drafthouse is more than welcome to have a women's night event for a particular movie, but if they refuse men at the door solely for their gender, that is illegal. https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/alamo-drafthouse-admi...

That's just a municipal ordinance and not a Constitutional result. It's not much of a result.

I live in Austin and support the Drafthouse's lighthearted attempt to offer women an opportunity to enjoy themselves by themselves.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#305

Post by samfisher83 »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #300
trashcan wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act You can't choose to rent based on familial status.

Could you please explain how exactly Fair Housing Act makes Facebook filtering illegal? Lack of advertising is not the same as "refuse to sell".

It says right on the wiki page: Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, disability or national origin.

Tech has changed so you can do the targeting. You are violating the spirit of the law. The point is if you make sure blacks, Mexicans, or women can't see your ad you are trying to exclude them.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#306

Post by tomjakubowski »

yardie wrote: post #26

How did they not see this coming. Are they not familiar with another dotcom called Craigslist who had to deal with this very same regulation years ago. Their counsel either wasn't aware of what FB marketplace was doing or didn't know about FHA laws. > draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes. This alone is really damn damning. I'm going to go out on a…

Man, I wish I could be so optimistic to think they just didn't know any better.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#307

Post by matchagaucho »

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…

How much of the responsibility falls on the Landlord, given they created the targeted ad segments?

It's not like the Facebook Ad Manager has a guided wizard for the real estate industry to target prospective tenants.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#308

Post by dennisgorelik »

samfisher83 wrote: post #305
dennisgorelik wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please explain how exactly Fair Housing Act makes Facebook filtering illegal? Lack of advertising is not the same as "refuse to sell".

It says right on the wiki page: Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, disability or national origin. Tech has changed so you can do the targeting. You are violating the spirit of the law. The point is if you make sure blacks, Mexicans, or women can't see your ad you are trying to exclude them.

But privately filtering who this ad will show to -- is NOT the same as publicly "advertising ... indicating preference".

> You are violating the spirit of the law.

No.

The spirit of the law is to prohibit public racial propaganda. The spirit of the law is NOT about hunting down private biases.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#309

Post by fma »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #300
trashcan wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act You can't choose to rent based on familial status.

Could you please explain how exactly Fair Housing Act makes Facebook filtering illegal? Lack of advertising is not the same as "refuse to sell".

I'll take a stab. You have a rental house where you want to rent out to senior citizens (for whatever reason). You put your ad in the local AARP magazine. If a young couple stumble upon the ad in the magazine, they can read the ad and apply for your rental.

However, what FB is doing is...that young couple reads the magazine and can't see the ad, but a senior citizen can.

IANAL...and for what it's worth there's a similar lawsuit for age discrimination for job hiring. Post ads only for certain age target.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#310

Post by JamisonM »

stale2002 wrote: post #199
JamisonM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

> , 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. I highly doubt that the majority of advertising business for Facebook and Google comes solely from discriminatory housing ads.

I also doubt that it is a majority of their business, but I think it would be interesting to find out just how much of their revenue is represented by discriminatory advertising across many domains (housing, hiring, for example), political advertising that may be dubious or illegal, and outright solicitation for scams. And then to think about how their revenue would fall and their costs increase if they are obligated to make a sincere effort to eliminate these items from their portfolio.
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