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Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

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Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#51

Post by School-Cotton »

noer wrote: post #41
bluedino wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There's sometimes a lot of chatter here on HN about a liberal arts education being worthless. Plenty of people here will argue that you shouldn't take out $80k in student loans to get a liberal arts degree. Worthelss in a ROI sense But there are a large amount of people here with pretty liberal views. So they certain don't disagree with the viewpoint.

Full disclosure: I have a liberal arts degree. When I was looking at colleges, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In high school, I really hated science and math classes. Years later I realized that I actually didn't but the single math teacher I had for four years of high school (it was a small school, I just had bad luck with what teachers were assigned to the classes I took). If…

You’re drawing a false dichotomy between career training and liberal arts.

I studied pure math which is as nerdy STEM as it gets, and absolutely zero of it was job training.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#52

Post by mcguire »

empath75 wrote: post #40
reaperducer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook provided only a tool. Nobody is after hardware store because a hammer bought there was used to kill someone. Your analogy is faulty. People, governments, and law enforcement agencies go after gun stores that sell guns that are used to kill people.

They're actually not allowed to do that unless the sale was illegal.

They're specifically not allowed to do that because the gun manufacturing and sales industry's lobby realized it would essentially kill gun sales.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#53

Post by bobydonahue »

notacoward wrote: post #46
LarryDarrell wrote: post #32

We have regulations on the books that are there as a result of 100 years of painful human experience. Wave a computer screen in someone's face and all of a sudden it's a different plane of existence and some people feel like these laws don't apply. I'm glad to see there is finally being some push back.

> some people feel like these laws don't apply That's catchy, but doesn't address the crucial question of which people should be held accountable for using a tool in a discriminatory way. You could argue that the publisher bears some or all of that responsibility, and I'd be fine with that, but shouldn't the advertisers bear some too? Why is HUD only going after Facebook and not them? Hint: the advertisers don't have…

I disagree, if the tool/service is by its very nature both discriminatory and a 'black box', the company who made/provides it is responsible for what it does. You can't just make millions selling an ethically questionable service and shift the blame to your customers who you kept in the dark.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#54

Post by reaperducer »

noer wrote: post #41
bluedino wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There's sometimes a lot of chatter here on HN about a liberal arts education being worthless. Plenty of people here will argue that you shouldn't take out $80k in student loans to get a liberal arts degree. Worthelss in a ROI sense But there are a large amount of people here with pretty liberal views. So they certain don't disagree with the viewpoint.

Full disclosure: I have a liberal arts degree. When I was looking at colleges, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In high school, I really hated science and math classes. Years later I realized that I actually didn't but the single math teacher I had for four years of high school (it was a small school, I just had bad luck with what teachers were assigned to the classes I took). If…

When I was looking at colleges, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

You're not supposed to. That's what a liberal arts degree is about: Exposing you to a lot of possibilities so you can choose.

I went to college for Computer Science, but half way through changed my major because I found other fields more interesting. A friend of mine went in for psychology and came out journalism. It happens all the time. I know very few people who came out of college with the degree they went in for. That's how it's supposed to work.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#55

Post by mcguire »

bilbo0s wrote: post #30
charliesharding wrote: post #2

Hot on the heels of their announcement yesterday. The irony is sweet

That's likely WHY they announced they were getting rid of extremists. They would have had knowledge of these charges today, as well as knowledge of other things the government is looking into vis-a-vis their business. So I'd imagine their lawyers are preempting a lot of things because they seem to be entering an age where there is potential to be charged even if you are secondarily associated with criminal activity.…

"...you never know what some person you provided a service for might do."

Well, you are in the business of knowing everything inferrable about all people, everywhere.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#56

Post by Consultant32452 »

bilbo0s wrote: post #21
jdavis703 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These platforms can be overrun by a majority of discriminatory ads. I remember using Craigslist about a decade ago to rent housing in Virginia. Over half the ads easily contained some kind of gender, age, family or religious discrimination (interestingly enough I never saw an ad that explicitly listed race, I suspect that is because explicit racial discrimination is so taboo people used more implicit means of discrim…

> interestingly enough I never saw an ad that explicitly listed race... ??? That must've just been Virginia? Where I lived in Houston, they listed unacceptable races all the time. (I suppose they didn't have to though, it was always the same two races listed.)

Sorry, but I'm curious. I'm guessing white and ???.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#57

Post by michaelchisari »

whatok wrote: post #48
LarryDarrell wrote: post #32

We have regulations on the books that are there as a result of 100 years of painful human experience. Wave a computer screen in someone's face and all of a sudden it's a different plane of existence and some people feel like these laws don't apply. I'm glad to see there is finally being some push back.

I can totally see how this wasn't anything malicious and just done out of pure ignorance of the law. That said, I would expect this out of a small startup; not a massive corporation. This is actually where I can see the argument for increases in diversity as I can see how a homogeneous group of people being completely ignorant of the ramifications of this.

> I can totally see how this wasn't anything malicious and just done out of pure ignorance of the law.

I agree that's possible, but that seems to be Facebook's goto excuse, and you're right, that's not something a megacorp should be allowed to reach to.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#58

Post by notacoward »

bobydonahue wrote: post #53
notacoward wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people feel like these laws don't apply That's catchy, but doesn't address the crucial question of which people should be held accountable for using a tool in a discriminatory way. You could argue that the publisher bears some or all of that responsibility, and I'd be fine with that, but shouldn't the advertisers bear some too? Why is HUD only going after Facebook and not them? Hint: the advertisers don't have…

I disagree, if the tool/service is by its very nature both discriminatory and a 'black box', the company who made/provides it is responsible for what it does. You can't just make millions selling an ethically questionable service and shift the blame to your customers who you kept in the dark.

> if the tool/service is by its very nature both discriminatory

Is it, in this case? Ad targeting has a zillion legitimate use cases, including some that are outright humanitarian. Yes, it can also be used in a discriminatory way, but Facebook already tried to address that in the cases HUD only nominally cares about. Phone numbers and ZIP codes can also be (and often are) used as proxies for race. Should HUD go after the phone companies and the postal service too? You could probably apply the same argument to Uber, Airbnb, and every other "gig economy" service as well. What you're suggesting is tantamount to making all targeted advertising illegal. If that's the argument you want to make, make it.

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#59

Post by SolaceQuantum »

whatok wrote: post #48
LarryDarrell wrote: post #32

We have regulations on the books that are there as a result of 100 years of painful human experience. Wave a computer screen in someone's face and all of a sudden it's a different plane of existence and some people feel like these laws don't apply. I'm glad to see there is finally being some push back.

I can totally see how this wasn't anything malicious and just done out of pure ignorance of the law. That said, I would expect this out of a small startup; not a massive corporation. This is actually where I can see the argument for increases in diversity as I can see how a homogeneous group of people being completely ignorant of the ramifications of this.

A large corporation should be able to afford lawyers that specialize in the legality of advertisements...

Re: Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads

#60

Post by closeparen »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #32

We have regulations on the books that are there as a result of 100 years of painful human experience. Wave a computer screen in someone's face and all of a sudden it's a different plane of existence and some people feel like these laws don't apply. I'm glad to see there is finally being some push back.

The historical precedent for Facebook ad targeting is allocating one's print ad budget according to the readership of a given periodical, or one's TV ad budget according to Nielsen's analysis of a show's audience.

Or more personally, advertising the room for rent in your house at your white-collar job but not at the welfare office.

Does the Fair Housing Act address this? Doesn't look like it.

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