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Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

propublica.org

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Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#41

Post by sandoooo »

currymj wrote: post #38
sandoooo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specific categories such as employment and housing, for example? Urgh, fine, pretend my examples were about bachelor pads. Same deal: don't target the young men who actually buy them, because we don't like those people and we don't want any part of the economy to cater for them. There is no material change in my argument.

I really doubt that Lyndon Johnson was thinking about how much he hates men when he signed the Fair Housing Act into law.

and I really doubt the people pushing for this right now really cares what Johnson's original intents were. A sharp rock is a sharp rock.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#43

Post by currymj »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21
strbean wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your aside is pretty much dead-on the big ethical issue with bias in ML right now. For example, ML can do quite a good job of predicting recidivism rates in convicts, and justice systems have been using this to aid in sentencing and parole hearings. Obviously, these ML approaches are not supposed to consider ethnicity. So the factor that ends up having the greatest weight is "did your father / grandfather spend time…

The real problem is that there is an actual racial disparity in recidivism rates, so an algorithm that makes accurate predictions will predict the racial disparity that actually exists. There is no way to solve that without significantly impairing the accuracy of the predictions -- which is to say releasing convicts who we know have an unreasonably high probability of recidivism merely because there were too many oth…

most of the standard metrics of fairness for machine learning don't just just try to equalize proportions of positive/negative labels. they look at error rates.

under these measures of fairness, a perfectly accurate predictor is regarded as perfectly fair, regardless of a disparity in base rates in the two populations.

some of the predictive policing models still fail under these metrics -- they are more prone to make errors on black defendants.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#44

Post by sokoloff »

munk-a wrote: post #7
whiddershins wrote: post #6

I can’t understand, in succinct plain terms, what the desired outcome is here. What would it look like if the ads were not biased, or discriminating, in any bad way.

Maybe it'd just look like it looked in the 90's, there wouldn't be targeted advertising and everyone except the marketers would be happier.

If you take as a given that I’m going to see ads (as I do), I’d much prefer to see ads that are relevant and interesting or amusing to me.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#45

Post by umvi »

cm2012 wrote: post #42

This is beyond stupid. What they're saying is that even if you target people who write "I love programming" on their fb page, it's still discriminatory towards women because men are more likely to write those words.

Yeah but that's a self reinforcing feedback loop. Only showing programming ads to people that write "I love programming" is like only showing religious ads to people that write "I love God". The advertisements do not help outgroups break in and in fact may push them farther away.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#46

Post by Mirioron »

mulmen wrote: post #17
munk-a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it'd just look like it looked in the 90's, there wouldn't be targeted advertising and everyone except the marketers would be happier.

Advertising has always been discriminatory. Even in the 90s there were multiple billboards, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations in the world. Advertisers select what, when and where to advertise based on who they think is listening. The only thing that has changed is how much we know about the "listener" (or page viewer). The nature of advertising is no different today than it was 100 years ago, only the res…

I don't see how you could even have ads that aren't discriminatory if "proxy characteristics that correlate with age or gender" is enough to be discriminatory? If you put an ad next to a barbershop, then that ad is targeting men through "proxy characteristics that correlate with gender", because it's next to a service that men are much more likely to visit. Is that illegal discrimination too? Are there officials that somehow calculate the locations where you are allowed to put advertising so that it wouldn't discriminate (close enough to shops that both men and women visit)?

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#47

Post by cortesoft »

munk-a wrote: post #7
whiddershins wrote: post #6

I can’t understand, in succinct plain terms, what the desired outcome is here. What would it look like if the ads were not biased, or discriminating, in any bad way.

Maybe it'd just look like it looked in the 90's, there wouldn't be targeted advertising and everyone except the marketers would be happier.

What do you mean? In the 90s they had targeted advertising... if you wanted to target people who liked cars, you bought an ad in Car & Driver

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#48

Post by Causality1 »

umvi wrote: post #45
cm2012 wrote: post #42

This is beyond stupid. What they're saying is that even if you target people who write "I love programming" on their fb page, it's still discriminatory towards women because men are more likely to write those words.

Yeah but that's a self reinforcing feedback loop. Only showing programming ads to people that write "I love programming" is like only showing religious ads to people that write "I love God". The advertisements do not help outgroups break in and in fact may push them farther away.

To which the response is... So? Progressive social engineering is not the responsibility of advertisers or of Facebook. If I want to hire someone to do artwork for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign book I'm not going to place an ad in Guns 'N Ammo, despite how underrepresented that demographic is in the tabletop roleplaying industry.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#49

Post by koolba »

mulmen wrote: post #19
munk-a wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this tool exists and allows ads to be viewed with the same visibility as their normal targeting then why are they bothering with targeted ads anymore?

Because most people don't go out of their way to view advertising.

If people realize they can use this to search directly for housing I can see a side business of creating min priced facebook ads just to get listed.

Re: Facebook Ads Can Still Discriminate, Despite a Civil Rights Settlement

#50

Post by mc32 »

cm2012 wrote: post #42

This is beyond stupid. What they're saying is that even if you target people who write "I love programming" on their fb page, it's still discriminatory towards women because men are more likely to write those words.

Exactly, if I were going to put an ad for a babysitter, probably looking to get a highschooler who has some free time and needs some spending money, I'm not hoping the car mechanic who got laid off and is looking to pay rent gets to see that ad.

Likewise if I were to want help in taxidermying a cat, I'm not wanting the butcher or the baxter seeing the ad as well. I only want the taxidermist.

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