Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

hud.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 568 posts

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#71

Post by dwaltrip »

EB66 wrote: post #46
dev_dull wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure their counsel knows exactly what they’re doing. Sometimes when you’re big and bad enough it’s worth it to take a gamble and see how things will settle in court. And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. People and cultures change and so should our regulation and laws.

> And that’s not even necessarily a bad thing. ...what? Are you suggesting it's a good thing that we bring back red lining and other discriminatory practices?

Reading charitably, perhaps they meant: it was bad in the case, but it isn't always a bad thing.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#72

Post by astura »

AdamM12 wrote: post #68
Karishma1234 wrote: post #56

Essentially an archaic organisation using an archaic law against a modern ad delivery platform. What a travesty.

Regulator land grab imo. FHA is intended to regulate the owners of real estate. HUD shouldn't be in the advertising regulation business.

... except the FHA literally has text that specifically applies to housing advertisements. They are enforcing the letter of the law.

>(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

#73

Post by deviationblue »

kryogen1c wrote: post #41

This complaint seems like its shooting itself in the foot - discrimination isn't inherently bad. When you hire, you discriminate based on ability. When you date, you discriminate in a number of ways like beauty, personality, etc. If you're selling ads for wheelchairs you want to discriminate for people with disabilities. If your houses aren't wheelchair accessible, you want your ads to discriminate against people wit…

The day 'discrimination' happens to you, you'll sing a different tune.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#74

Post by null000 »

AdamM12 wrote: post #64

Why is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it. Government overreach imo. Edit: grammatical mistakes

This is similar to if the NYT ran discriminatory ads - which is an actual case from the 1980s and resulted in both notable fines, and the NYT having humans review housing ads for discriminatory practices, such as having an unrepresentably white set of models in housing ads (from one of the propublica links in some of the other comments). Same goes for craigslist, which also has to screen housing ads.

I'd argue both are responsible - the platform hosting the ad and the people making the ad.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#75

Post by quotemstr »

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing.

Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based on X is therefore prohibited discrimination. They can repeat this process for all X.

Now, you might argue that ad targeting is bad. That's a common position on HN. But it's not true: ad targeting is good for advertisers, since it enables more efficient advertising, and it's good for users, since it subjects them to less noise and exposes them to ads more likely to be relevant to them. Ad targeting also undergirds practically the entire tech economy. That probably means you, reader of this comment.

Where exactly should restrictions on ad targeting stop?

EDIT: For clarity:

Step 1: HUD files a complaint against Facebook for allowing ad targeting based on certain criteria.

Step 2: Facebook bans advertising targeting based on the criteria in the HUD complaint.

Step 3: Advertisers react by targeting based on demographic correlates of the categories from step #1.

Step 4: HUD notices that ads are still getting delivered more to one group than another.

GOTO STEP #1.

There's no clear point at which this process stops. Demographic correlates are numerous and strong. Are you going to ban all of them? That's tantamount to banning ad targeting generally!

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#76

Post by ticviking »

quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

So it eliminates the financial incentive for massive private surveillance?

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#77

Post by astura »

AdamM12 wrote: post #64

Why is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it. Government overreach imo. Edit: grammatical mistakes

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, limitation, or discrimination.

If people actually did place housing discrimination ads they'd also be in violation of the law.

(In general, laws are usually written in a way to prevent profiting off of illegal behavior)

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#78

Post by wcrichton »

quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

It stops at the product, no? It seems more acceptable to target advertisements for toys than housing.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#79

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

briandear wrote: post #45
austincheney wrote: post #31

Here are the likely relevant laws in question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 By law you cannot discriminate by any designation of protected class, which includes not only parties to a business transaction but also messaging and opportunities there upon. I do understand why Facebook would allow ad display filtering by race and other demographi…

My question would be if an advertiser advertised housing in a demographically targeted publication, for example, a publication focused only on single gay men, if that would necessarily function as discrimination since single mothers wouldn’t be reading that publication, nor those ads. Facebook allows demographic targeting that just happens to be more “effective,” but no more discriminatory that the way conventional t…

> for example, a publication focused only on single gay men, if that would necessarily function as discrimination since single mothers wouldn’t be reading that publication, nor those ads.

Who is preventing a single mom from purchasing that publication?

Seriously Brian, you are ignorant, hateful asshole.

Re: HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

#80

Post by quotemstr »

wcrichton wrote: post #78
quotemstr wrote: post #75

Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad targeting, and that's a very bad thing. Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target based…

It stops at the product, no? It seems more acceptable to target advertisements for toys than housing.

Should Facebook be liable for allowing an advertiser to target a housing ad at people with preferences for organic food?
Post reply on HN