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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

#451

Post by astura »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #437
zapita wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The spirit of the law is to prohibit public racial propaganda. The spirit of the law is NOT about hunting down private biases. I have no idea what you’re talking about with the “propaganda”, but everything you need to know is right there in the announcement: “ The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions including print and online advertisement on the basis of race, color, national origin,…

> discrimination in housing transactions "Advertising housing" is NOT "housing transaction". Transaction happens when landlord and renter signing renting agreement.

The FHA clearly regulates housing advertising.

>>(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, limitation, or discrimination.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#452

Post by shard972 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #402
iamleppert wrote: post #277

Wow, this page is pretty damning evidence: https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes It basically is showing that Facebook knowingly implemented a system to discriminate against people. Even the stock photos are full of white people. Here's hoping HUD makes a big example out of them and fines them to the fullest extent of the law.

Huh. The stock photo at the top of that link for me has a picture of a white man, an Asian woman, and an Asian-looking little girl. There are no other stock photos on the page. https://imgur.com/gHzzBXU

I mean, asians look white to me.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#453

Post by simion314 »

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…

Maybe a comparison with an existing radio station that publishes ads for profit, people submits ads where some are obvious illegal, the radio station is aware about it but since it makes money does absolutely nothing, not even warn their clients.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#454

Post by dang »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #259
dang wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? It's destructive of what this site exists for, the site guidelines ask you not to, and we ban accounts that continue doing it, regardless of their politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I am unable to see any political arguments here. Need to take off your hippie glasses I suppose.

The issue is that you've been using HN primarily for that, which is against the site guidelines. You've also used more than one account to do it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've banned this account until we get some indication that you want to use HN as intended, and will from now on.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#455

Post by jypepin »

jrockway wrote: post #396
dsr_ wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, if you get a radio license and so something illegal with it, that's your fault, and the FCC is the authority that can punish you for it. In this case, just like Facebook. Your responsibility, handed to you with the license, is to not do illegal things, even if people want to pay you money to do it. It's especially bad if you build an automated system that has options for people to do illegal things, since you are…

I'm not sure I agree. If someone buys a radio to transmit illegally, the advertising platform they viewed the ad for the radio on isn't liable, nor is the place they bought it from, nor is the manufacturer or importer. (There is quite the controversy around people buying Baofeng radios to transmit illegally. Amazon is happy to sell you one, no questions asked.) This extends to many areas. Gun manufacturers aren't lia…

but it's not really what's happening here. If a gun manufacturer sells you a gun where it is legal to sell gun, then they are neither doing something illegal, nor directly giving you tools to do something illegal. They can't control what you will do with the gun, but they also don't tell you where it's safe to go kill people with it, and mostly give you safety instructions.

Here it is the same thing with Facebook. If they sell you a platform for advertising, they might not be able to control 100% of the content of the ads, some bad stuff might slip. But they should NOT offer you tools to publish illegal ads. In that case, being able to filter ads by race is illegal, and it's on them to offer this option. It would be a different story if there was no option and a publisher just wrote "no people of ".

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#456

Post by jypepin »

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…

I do believe it is your responsibility as the radio broadcaster to filter the content that you broadcast. I would think both the broadcaster and the publisher would be in trouble?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#457

Post by jypepin »

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…

That is an interesting point, kind of on the edge I guess. If Facebook really wanted to do the right thing while allowing this kind of multi-targeting, they should then build something such as segments in the same campaign.

You want to target only a specific group that, under the law, can't be targeted/avoided? Fine, but then you have to create at least 3 segments on this ad to target at least 3 different groups, to prove that you are not discriminating.

A segment would be a version of the ad (design, copy, etc) + targeted group.

edit: my point here is that it should be Facebook's responsibility to make it difficult for publisher to post illegal ads, not the other way around.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#458

Post by bonzini »

astura wrote: post #451
dennisgorelik wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> discrimination in housing transactions "Advertising housing" is NOT "housing transaction". Transaction happens when landlord and renter signing renting agreement.

The FHA clearly regulates housing advertising. >>(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, limitation, or d…

There is no indication of preference/limitation/discrimination in the content that reaches the end user of Facebook.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#459

Post by fit2rule »

mirimir wrote: post #394
jahewson wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a dumb question. No, of course it’s not. If you ask USPS to display your illegal ad in their window then it certainly is their fault. That would be an actually comparable situation here.

Well, there was a criminal case against FedEx for delivering illegal prescriptions from Internet drug stores. But it got tossed.

Is FedEx marketing itself to drug distributors as a way to filter out the chaff and get straight to the drug users of highest value?

I think not.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#460

Post by ben_w »

vkou wrote: post #435
int_19h wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Pastafarians are just as much a protected class as Catholics, Jains and Druze. Only if they can demonstrate that their religious beliefs are sincere. There have been some court cases along these lines already.

Nobody asks a Christian to confirm that their beliefs are sincere, and that they aren't just pretending to believe in God, for the social benefits it brings.

That exact thing happens in the UK.

https://www.sundaypost.com/news/uk-news/school-places-withdr...

For purposes of going to secondary school, I was raised Catholic. Slightly more completed my case as although my dad was an atheist, my mum thought she was taking it seriously (given how many New Age books and Hindu icons and statues she had, I don’t count her as a proper Catholic).

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