Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

hud.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 568 posts

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#411

Post by scarface74 »

doctorless wrote: post #248
cpkpad wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's what's being suggested. The idea that redlining should be reexamined by the courts every half century or so is what's being suggested. In 2018, courts ought to find its still illegal give facebook a book fine. In 2118? Hopefully we'll be past racism and courts will find the concept obsolete and antiquated. Or they may find racism is common but the tools needed to manage it are different. The Inte…

Having been in a mixed-race relationship where one partner is brown, I can tell you firsthandedly that if you think racism is rare, then you’re probably white or Asian or you have consistently lived in areas where racism is actually rare. I lived in places where when I was young, I never saw anyone engage in racist behaviors. This changed the moment I entered that relationship. It may have ended long ago, but it’s de…

And there are still plenty of places in south where people think "miscgenenation" is a sin.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/interracial-marria...

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#412

Post by brennebeck »

ne0sapi3n wrote: post #267
google_censors wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProPublica really did an amazing job of sticking with this, considering that HUD knew what was happening and still dropped the investigation in 2016.

HUD Secretary at the time was Julian Castro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Castro

Doing a quick scan of his wiki I don’t see anything relevant? Or are you trying to imply something in particular and I just missed it?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#413

Post by brennebeck »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #302
craigzucchini wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While true, I’ll admit to chuckling a bit.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#414

Post by prolikewh0a »

iamleppert wrote: post #386
LanceH wrote: post #342

So if I get a radio license and then broadcast an illegal ad, it's the FCC's fault. Why is everyone trying so hard to turn facebook (and google, twitter, etc...) into a filter on everything we say? When facebook gets held responsible for all content in all jurisdiction it will err on the side of proscription. It was only about 10 years ago that many now acceptable (mandatory even) progressive positions were not in fa…

If you get a radio license and setup a web site that allows people to broadcast their own death threats over your radio station, that’s your fault. In Facebook’s case they not only did that but marketed their death threat service and touted it as highly effective. That’s a much better metaphor.

>If you get a radio license and setup a web site that allows people to broadcast their own death threats over your radio station, that’s your fault.

Exactly. You are the control operator.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#415

Post by iamdave »

doctorless wrote: post #399
iamdave wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you think racism is rare, then you’re probably white or Asian I sincerely hope this isn't an intimation that Asians are somehow immune from forms of racism or racially charged behavior? Would you be able to clarify this a bit? Maybe I've misunderstood you.

Definitely not the implication. Everyone can receive racially charged behavior, however the outright hostility towards lighter-skinned Asians in the United States is significantly lower than towards other minority groups as well as darker-skinned Asians.

Fair enough.

Consider me a bit incredulous of that argument.

I guess, as a man of color I'm hesitant to create some sort of ranking system as to "who's getting whipped harder" as a metric when it comes to racial discrimination of all its permutations.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#416

Post by savanaly »

MBCook wrote: post #134
dnautics wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 im…

Except that’s literally illegal in housing. Yes it makes sense in other contexts, but it should never have been allowed here. I’m surprised it took this long for them to be sued. Just like job notices they’ve been allowing blatantly illegal ads for a LONG time.

If there are good reasons why one ethnicity would prefer housing over another (or, equivalently, if the housing provider would prefer them) then it's just like the beauty products thing and discrimination in advertising should be allowed. And if there aren't then it's hardly worth the time to ban it-- anyone who engaged in it would be wasting their time.

So although it seems unclear whether that conditional is met, either way I don't see why we would ban such advertising.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#418

Post by r00fus »

j16sdiz wrote: post #397
twblalock wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the publisher of the ads and is responsible for obeying the law. If someone asks Facebook to publish an illegal ad, Facebook should not do it. This is not a free speech issue, or a political speech issue. Nobody is censoring progressive or conservative positions in this case. It's an issue of legality in real estate advertising under a framework of laws that were written decades ago.

The problem is: These kind of censorship of use generated content can't scale up to all jurisdiction. Maybe we should acknowledge it is impossible to make a global, legal, Facebook-like website.

If Facebook makes money on it they have the funds to stop it.

No slippery slope. This shit is illegal and has been for decades . Just because it happens on the internet doesn't make it any less illegal.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#419

Post by Nasrudith »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #382
thaumasiotes wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the difference is excluding (discriminating) versus targeting. Targeting is legal, discriminating is not. Can you articulate a difference between "targeting" and "discriminating", other than one being legal and one being illegal?

Targeting means saying it's a Foo themed event, discriminating means banning non-Foo from entry.

I wonder about the distinctions legally given machine based tools and context insensitivity and what separates identical results.

If one had a list of proxies for every ethnicity and individually assigned all but one would it qualify as legal targeting or illegal discrimination?

Would this format derived from US ethnicity census be legal: [x] White [] Black or African American [x] American Indian or Alaska Native [x] Asian or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

but a query of 'exclude "Black or African American"' be considered illegal even if they both map to an abbreviated form of hexadecimal B? Although it could be argued that by making the discriminators have to work harder to figure out how to exercise bigotry in advertising is a reasonable baseline.

The spirit of the law is clear but I wonder about the mechanics of it for avoiding all of the gross loopholes and technicalities and enforceability. Just advertising home listings in 'Farmer's Weekly' (for sake of example assuming it has an overwhelmingly white subscriber base) for selling an exurban house wouldn't prove discriminatory intent and short of memos giving racist directives to the marketing department being released.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#420

Post by chickenfries »

j16sdiz wrote: post #397
twblalock wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the publisher of the ads and is responsible for obeying the law. If someone asks Facebook to publish an illegal ad, Facebook should not do it. This is not a free speech issue, or a political speech issue. Nobody is censoring progressive or conservative positions in this case. It's an issue of legality in real estate advertising under a framework of laws that were written decades ago.

The problem is: These kind of censorship of use generated content can't scale up to all jurisdiction. Maybe we should acknowledge it is impossible to make a global, legal, Facebook-like website.

We're not talking about someone singing up for a free account with a burner email and posting on a Facebook group. We're talking about Facebook's ad targeting product from which they make a substantial profit...
Post reply on HN