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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

#531

Post by ummonk »

astura wrote: post #480
pests wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lengths at which you are going to rationalize racism just astounds me. Answer me this. How on Facebook you would expect an excluded person to be able to know about the sale? They wouldn't. The housing listing doesn't exist for them. How do you see this as fair?! I am blown away by all the casual racism all throughout this thread.

I am convinced half these commenters are just being disingenuous just for the sake of it. These sorts of cases are settled and straightforward, we have a half century of case law plus multiple publications from HUD that directly address this issue. Craigslist actually does an excellent job of summarizing the laws and giving specific examples of illegal advertisements. https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA

That link says nothing about targeted ads. It talks about the content of the advertisements.

Mind you, I do think that ads targeted only to e.g. certain races are crappy and probably violate the law, but that certainly isn't as obvious from the links people are providing.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#532

Post by dralley »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #312
reaperducer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy If a small town newspaper with a staff of 30 can do it, Facebook has both the staff and resources to do the same. If it cannot, or will not, it should not take advertisements for sectors that are regulated.

But small town newspapers are endangered by those costs! Facebook only makes about $6 ARPU. Automating the crap out of everything is what enables them to exist.

>Automating the crap out of everything is what enables them to exist.

If they're too big to be accountable then maybe they shouldn't exist.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#533

Post by nasredin »

jahewson wrote: post #369
tekromancr wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geotargeting polygon was literally RED!?! I can believe that being an oversight, but holy Shit those optics... yikes

For those outside the US who may be wondering why this is so significant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

>>In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#534

Post by DanBC »

ABCLAW wrote: post #140
xphilter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. I was able to draw actual red lines excluding zip codes from seeing a housing ad. But this was 8-10 months ago. It’s possible they changed the UI.

Was Legal just sleeping at the wheel? This is a very well known piece of history. I wonder how this conversation went when they were drawing up this feature.

> This is a very well known piece of history.

In a company where you have people defacing "black lives matter" posters why is it surprising that they know fuck all about black history?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#535

Post by ummonk »

astura wrote: post #441
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…

They are enforcing this part of the FHA (emphasis mine): >(c) To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitat…

These ads don't indicate any preference though. They are targeted based on a preference (which is not surfaced to the viewers of the ad), but don't actually indicate any preference.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#536

Post by Maybestring »

AdamM12 wrote: post #202
Hermitian909 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your edit is in earnest it's because your comment comes off as naive. Inefficiency _must_ be one of several deciding factors because our resources are limited. Tying resources up in a maximally just be deeply inefficient process prevents us from dealing with other problems of injustice for whom the solution requires more resources. The world _requires_ us to consider factors other than maximal justice in individua…

To me that sounds like a trade off of due process and justness. Which I hold in high opinion of. At the EOD all laws are backed by violence. If the state is to resort to that they better be right. edit: "...and justness"

Facebook shareholders aren't facing summary execution. There is no reduction of due process here.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#539

Post by dang »

mindslight wrote: post #333
dang wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep flamewar rhetoric off HN.

It's very odd that detracting from a two minute hate gets labeled as the flamewar. I get that if everybody commenting is in agreement, then there is no "war". It's just utterly anti-intellectual, and I thought HN was above that.

You didn't detract from it, you invoked it. That's the problem with flamey rhetoric.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#540

Post by rootusrootus »

danmg wrote: post #380
chickenfries wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Facebook, you either put this in your profile, or the kinds of pages and events that you like and interact with will give this away. Not saying that it's not creepy, just that with the way we use the internet these days, it's not an epic feat for an advertiser to figure this out given the amount of data we put out there.

Actually in this case it's pretty easy. If you're gay and use dating apps, and didn't opt out of application usage history in your settings, the presence of those apps in your history will flag you as having that interest to advertisers. The google analytics get resold/repackaged, either directly or indirectly through data brokers, to Facebook. Facebook suddenly starts displaying ads for expensive mens' underwear.

Ha, I get ads on FB for expensive men's underwear. Their algorithms clearly have room for improvement.
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