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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

#481

Post by eahman00 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #463
fjsolwmv wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious to me. If I photocopy an ilegal ad at Kinko's, is it Kinko's fault? If I send an illegal ad via first class mail, is it USPS's fault?

Sometimes. They sold it to you. Example: I worked at a pharmacy with the self-serve digital photo services. A customer brought in a CD and made christmas cards from a family picture. It turns out the picture was taken by a local photographer the customer had hired. The pharmacy I worked at got the legal notice. Supposedly, we were partly to blame since we profited off of the cards the customer printed. Nevermind the…

>a pharmacy with the self-serve digital photo services

...Why does a pharmacy print photographies? I've never heard of a pharmacy selling something that isn't drugs.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#482

Post by Zarel »

eahman00 wrote: post #481
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes. They sold it to you. Example: I worked at a pharmacy with the self-serve digital photo services. A customer brought in a CD and made christmas cards from a family picture. It turns out the picture was taken by a local photographer the customer had hired. The pharmacy I worked at got the legal notice. Supposedly, we were partly to blame since we profited off of the cards the customer printed. Nevermind the…

>a pharmacy with the self-serve digital photo services ...Why does a pharmacy print photographies? I've never heard of a pharmacy selling something that isn't drugs.

In the US and many other countries (I can confirm this is true for Japan), pharmacies are also convenience stores, and sell many other things besides drugs.

https://www.cvs.com/

For instance, here's a US pharmacy chain – notice it mentions photos on the home page.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#483

Post by pests »

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

It may be easier to believe they are being disingenuous but the real answer is probably that they are in fact racist.

Its a hard truth to swallow.

The rest of this isn't directed just at you astura.

If this was some random Facebook or 4chan comment would you be so quick to come to that rationalization?

I feel we like to think the individuals we associate with on HN are like minded. To admit they aren't is almost a personal affront. To keep the disillusion going we must rationalize and make up excuses for them or how they behave.

But sometimes a duck is a duck.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#484

Post by eahman00 »

Zarel wrote: post #482
eahman00 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a pharmacy with the self-serve digital photo services ...Why does a pharmacy print photographies? I've never heard of a pharmacy selling something that isn't drugs.

In the US and many other countries (I can confirm this is true for Japan), pharmacies are also convenience stores, and sell many other things besides drugs. https://www.cvs.com/ For instance, here's a US pharmacy chain – notice it mentions photos on the home page.

"Sorry, our site is unavailable in your country right now."

In any case I suppose it's a cultural thing. I've seen in the US they have ads for really invasive drugs on the telly, so I suppose Americans visit pharmacies all the time, that's why they became convenience stores? Or maybe the other way around, they are convenience stores so they can get Americans to buy drugs more often? Anyway, offtopic.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#485

Post by icebraining »

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.

Then it can't exist. Worse things could befall the world.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#486

Post by bardworx »

eahman00 wrote: post #484
Zarel wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US and many other countries (I can confirm this is true for Japan), pharmacies are also convenience stores, and sell many other things besides drugs. https://www.cvs.com/ For instance, here's a US pharmacy chain – notice it mentions photos on the home page.

"Sorry, our site is unavailable in your country right now." In any case I suppose it's a cultural thing. I've seen in the US they have ads for really invasive drugs on the telly, so I suppose Americans visit pharmacies all the time, that's why they became convenience stores? Or maybe the other way around, they are convenience stores so they can get Americans to buy drugs more often? Anyway, offtopic.

In search of continues growth, pharmacies in the US had to expand their offerings.

Since someone will go there to get their prescription filled or pick up some Asprin, it makes sense to start selling vitamins, then some household essentials, and before you know it Walgreens is selling fruits and veggies.

Pictures being printed in pharmacies have been around since 90s, at least.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#488

Post by sorokod »

yardie wrote: post #26

How did they not see this coming. Are they not familiar with another dotcom called Craigslist who had to deal with this very same regulation years ago. Their counsel either wasn't aware of what FB marketplace was doing or didn't know about FHA laws. > draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes. This alone is really damn damning. I'm going to go out on a…

Perhaps they did, but figured that on the balance, the profit will outweigh the penalty.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#489

Post by sorokod »

hw wrote: post #43
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #13

Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review of all that content.

Companies operating on Google scale should also have the scale to ensure that their ad platform doesn't enable people to target ads discriminately, especially when it's on something like housing where there are laws against that. They're probably more worried about their quarterly results and shareholders than they are about potential problems until it becomes a big problem.

Right, except what does scale had to do with anything? The law is there regardless of the scale.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#490

Post by dralley »

eahman00 wrote: post #484
Zarel wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US and many other countries (I can confirm this is true for Japan), pharmacies are also convenience stores, and sell many other things besides drugs. https://www.cvs.com/ For instance, here's a US pharmacy chain – notice it mentions photos on the home page.

"Sorry, our site is unavailable in your country right now." In any case I suppose it's a cultural thing. I've seen in the US they have ads for really invasive drugs on the telly, so I suppose Americans visit pharmacies all the time, that's why they became convenience stores? Or maybe the other way around, they are convenience stores so they can get Americans to buy drugs more often? Anyway, offtopic.

The "invasive ads", while really shitty, are for prescription-only drugs, and it's the drug companies behind those, not the pharmacies. You can't just walk into a pharmacy to get those drugs.

They're "convenience stores" in the sense that they also sell things like soap, laundry detergent, toothbrushes/toothpaste/floss/mouthwash, paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc. It has nothing to do with getting people to buy more drugs, it's just another thing to sell. Stores in the US tend to be bigger and stand alone, so if you've got a sizable building you want to fill it with something to sell.

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