Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users By Race (propublica.org) 197
schwit1 quotes a report from ProPublica: Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers. That's basically what Facebook is doing nowadays. The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls "Ethnic Affinities." Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment. You can view a screenshot of a housing advertisement that ProPublica's Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. purchased from Facebook's self-service advertising portal here. The report adds: "The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an "affinity" for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. (Here's the ad itself.) The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal "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." Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits the "printing or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discrimination" in employment recruitment. Facebook's business model is based on allowing advertisers to target specific groups -- or, apparently to exclude specific groups -- using huge reams of personal data the company has collected about its users. Facebook's micro-targeting is particularly helpful for advertisers looking to reach niche audiences, such as swing-state voters concerned about climate change. Facebook says its policies prohibit advertisers from using the targeting options for discrimination, harassment, disparagement or predatory advertising practices.
White people don't need.. (Score:3, Funny)
Soul Glow
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Although white people do visit in the hamburger restaurants having the golden arches.
They are not golden arches, they are golden arcs.
Re:White people don't need.. (Score:5, Funny)
They are not golden arches, they are golden arcs.
You say potato, I say reformed potato starch with added hydrogenated fats and salt.
Hmm, maybe I'm not remembering that quite right...
obvious violation is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
"I defy you to tell me how the Facebook Kwik-N-Easy Discrimination Toolkit can be used to discriminate!"
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The shocking thing is how quickly so many slashdot readers jump onto really dubious defenses of this behavior. This is not an edge case, this is a head-slapping "D'oh!"
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? How is this any different than advertising at hockey games, or on Univision? Advertisers have always targeted different ethnic groups differently.
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Careful. There is no law that says you have to take affirmative measures to ensure that your housing ads reach all races equally, BUT it is illegal to INTENTIONALLY skew housing ads to disproportionately target, or avoid targeting, specific races. More info here [hud.gov]. So would it be illegal for someone advertising an apartment for rent to use Facebook's service? Maybe. If they were using it to ensure they were reaching all races equally, that would likely be legal. Otherwise, likely illegal. The same is true for ads for employment and credit. Other advertisers face no such restrictions.
http://www.hud.gov/offices/fhe... [hud.gov]
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It looks like this may indeed be illegal according to current law.
(2)
Persons placing advertisements.
A failure by persons placing advertisements to use the criteria contained in this part, when found in connection with the investigation of a complaint alleging the making or use of discriminatory advertisements, will be considered by the General Counsel in making a determination of reasonable cause, and by the Assistant Secretary in making determinations that there is no reasonable cause, to believe that a discriminatory housing practice has occurred or is about to occur.
It goes on to talk about how advertising only in the English language only may be considered discriminatory, or (a) Selective geographical advertisement, (b) Selective use of equal opportunity logo (i.e. using the logo in some advertisements but not in others), or (c) Selective advertisement using specific human models (i.e. only using white models).
Given all that, I can't see how this could *possibly* be legal, as the intent of the law seems
Should be no surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook promotes censorship, it does not protect speech. In fact they have been reported by former employees of censorship. Just like Twitter and Google, they are in the bag as propagandists, not outlets for free speech.
If you censor political opinions, why would you not allow other forms of censorship? It should be obvious that free speech is not a concern in one case, so would not be a concern in others. Oh, they may make phony claims that they care but that is simply to prevent people from abandoning the platform and finding/inventing other mediums.
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Basic morality test (Score:2)
If you don't understand how two similar immoral acts relate to character you have no right to call other people names.
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Is everyone in this website a moron?
If you smell shit wherever you go, check your shoes.
No crime, just hurt feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no violation of the law.
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There is no violation of the law.
I doubt if there are hurt feelings either. As a male, I am not offended that there are no tampon ads in "Guns and Ammo" magazine. As a white guy, I am not offended that there are no malt liquor ads at hockey games.
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Same as "Apartments for rent. No negros or hispanics need apply."
Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Even if it isn't illegal, using it to exclude certain ethic groups from your properties is immoral. People are allowed to criticise that.
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The funny part is that these racists rushing out to defend the practice are accidentally defending the people using facebook's service instead of facebook, because they misunderstood who is being accused. Words, they mean something or other, I think...
more shit stirring click bait... (Score:2)
If targeting ads by race is suddenly racist then we should ban BET and Univision and any other media company that offers programming and advertising targeted for a racial group.
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Really?
I see a difference between instructing a mail carrier to deliver a flyer to a predominantly white neighborhood, versus instructing the mail carrier not to deliver the flyer to any homes in that neighborhood that have non-white residents.
Actions are perceived differently when it gets to an individual/personal differentiation.
I expect the courts to agree.
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Sure, but when a 3rd party reseller is offering to make the list of white neighborhoods and only ask the post office to deliver the ad to those neighborhoods then it leaves not really much room for interpretation.
The actual situation is perhaps more clear than your example.
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If the facebook tool said that only those people looking at a certain wall could see an ad, but everyone who looked at the wall could see it, it would not be
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haha (Score:2)
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That's how moronish and EditorJavaid got hired.
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Exclusion on national origin can definitely be included in labor ads.
In general, no, labor ads cannot discriminate on national origin. There is an exemption if the job has a government mandate that requires US citizenship or a security clearance. Years ago, I worked for defense contractors that required citizenship. But it is not legal for a company doing private sector work to have such a requirement.
Disclaimer: I do not now, nor will I ever again, do defense work.
NEO the lawyer (Score:3)
In case there is any confusion the whole point of advertising companies building profiles of people is so they can JUDGE them based on statistical datasets and use the resulting judgment to maximize their own profits. Their activities are inherently prejudicial.
Inventing what amounts to public signage which can only be read by certain people isn't illegal. You after all are not expressing a preference within content of the sign.
The same way stealing your shit (civil forfeiture) doesn't violate the 14th amendment.
Or stalking cell phone users, reading emails and collecting everyone's phone records without warrant does not violate the fourth amendment. Neither is the 7th amendment violated by undecipherable nonnegotiable omnipresent EULAs requiring submission to arbitration.
Up is down, left is right there is no spoon.
That's just life for you (Score:2)
Fact of the matter is, different ethnicities have different needs. Black people need different hair products, prefer to buy different clothing and shoes, listen to different music, eat different foods. Men don't buy high heels or cosmetics. Women aren't very interested in power tools or car related trinkets. And so on and so forth. There's this notion that differentiating by need is sexism/racism/etc-ism somehow, but it really isn't. Stereotypes are rooted in reality. All those advertisers are trying to do
I thought it was impossible (Score:2)
I thought it was impossible for me to hate Facebook any more than I already did, but whaddya know......
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I've said this all along (Score:2)
That the same advertisers and services that want to browbeat everyone for ever minor misstep are the absolute worst about "discriminating" when it comes to their targeting and demographic marketing. It's not outrageous, so what if I'm selling a product and think a certain market is going to buy more of them so that's who I target? Is this news to anyone?
The thing is, it's the hypocrisy of it all that bothers me. Well, that and the erasing of personal preference. I prefer not to date women with red hair, I d
Advertiser, not Publisher responsible. (Score:2)
So, it appears ProPublica may have violated the Fair Housing Act by placing this ad. HUD should investigate and fine them as appropriate. I suggest that everyone here file a complaint with HUD about ProPublica's behavior.
The publisher (Facebook) didn't place the ad, the advertiser did.
I'd bet that Facebook has adequate disclosure on its site and in its terms of service for advertisers (although, I've not confirmed this) about the Fair Housing Act's requirements.
The fact that an individual ad is, for example
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So, it appears ProPublica may have violated the Fair Housing Act by placing this ad.
How's that? ProPublica didn't place an ad for housing, they placed an ad for a public speaking event.
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Then there was no Fair Housing Act violation on ANYONE's part -- why is this news? I also didn't violate the Fair Housing Act today, but not /. nor any news agency reported this.
Um (Score:2)
Advantage (Score:2)
Indeed such stuff looks shocking to me, but on the other hand it has some advantage: it could free us of some mistargetted ads, such as hair care for black women served to bald white men.
I don't see the (additional) problem (Score:2)
Ad targetting means trying to get the ads to certain groups of people, to get it to the people interested in the product (or falling for your scam).
If you target on the finanicial income, gender, the color of my car or the color of my skin doesn't matter.
People may target their ads based on stereotypes, but they probably won't. They will target them in a way, which maximizes their profit. The evolved way (think of a-b-tests) will possibly show, that some stereotypes emerge, because they are true (in the sen
Re:Muh Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have a constitutional right to be advertised to?
And if so, is it a right that I can renounce?
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Do you have a constitutional right to be advertised to?
And if so, is it a right that I can renounce?
Exactly what I was thinking. They can exclude me from any advertising they choose to, in fact they could exclude me from all advertising. Would I be outside their office protesting? I don't think so.
Re:Muh Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is there is a law on the books about this topic and through the self service portal you can violate it.
I'm not sure that's FB's fault. The advertiser is the one selecting the exclusions.
There are other ad campaigns where this targeting is perfectly valid and legal. I think the expectation from FBs devs is that you are responsible for not doing something illegal with their service.
Same issue:
If I post hate content on FB and cause someone to kill themselves is FB blamed for it? no. I am. (rightly so).
This advertising issue should be no different.
-nB
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... the race of the person being advertised to should not be a criteria that is even available for selection by the advertiser.
Okay. I'll bite.
If I am selling tickets to the BET Awards, I could save considerable money by excluding Caucasians in the marketing campaign.
If I am selling holiday packages to Vietnam, I would want to not advertise to the Vietnamese.
If I am selling flights to Thailand, I know the main markets are White-Americans, White-Australians and Asian-Australians, and Russians
And in this case, if I was advertising a property in a neighbourhood that is not popular with Hispanic people according to the demographic stu
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I can see why you wouldn't want to advertise to people in Vietnam, but why wouldn't you want to advertise to Vietnamese people? There'd be a disproportionately high number who'd want to visit their birthplace or the birthplace of their parents, surely?
They wouldn't be interested in complete holiday packages. No-frills-flights: yes. But they don't need the package with fancy hotels, guided tours and that whole tourist stuff. So while you would want to market flights to Vietnam to Vietnamese, that would be a different product.
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Simply put, the race of the person being advertised to should not be a criteria that is even available for selection by the advertiser.
Why should gender be allowed as a criteria then?
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I'm not so sure there is a law on the books about this. The ads themselves (presumably) do not specify a preference, the law cited doesn't say anything about the distribution of ads being racially biased.
If there were such a law, it would likely be illegal to do a wide variety of targeted advertising that doesn't directly reference race.
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Some are offended at being called African-American, since as far as they're concerned, they have no ties to Africa.
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I tend to lump them in the "some people will find a reason to be offended no matter what you do" bucket.
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It's worth pointing out:
A) the feature isn't actually checking the race of the user, it's guessing.
B) there are other ways to limit based on race without using race. For instance, FB could easily provide an option to filter based on zip code. If an advertiser target
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http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group4/building34566/media/0426wth.jpg [rackcdn.com]
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You have a constitutional right to not be not advertised to because of your race/religion/gender/other protected status. It's strange, but readily obvious. Imagine a smart billboard that advertised available CEO jobs only to men, and only advertised maid/schoolteacher/cook positions to women. Can you not see how fundamentally messed up that is?
Basically, you have a right, as always, not to look at advertising.
Frankly, I hate targeted ads, and would b
Re:Muh Rights (Score:4, Interesting)
You have a constitutional right to not be not advertised to because of your race/religion/gender/other protected status.
You definitely don't, because the constitution is a set of restrictions on what the government is allowed to do to its citizens.
Also, even if it were, then Hollywood would be constantly violating the constitution by only offering roles to actors that matched the race/sex of that role. Is it messed up that the role of Martin Luther King Jr. was offered to David Oyelowo as opposed to Angelina Jolie, because of Mr. Oyelowo's race and gender?
Frankly, I hate targeted ads, and would be quite happy with a law against targeted advertising. If for no other reason than it eliminates like 95% of the well-funded efforts to violate my privacy.
Why not just make a law against advertising in general?
Re:Muh Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, hence the government cannot discriminately advertise. In a related story, the government extended legal protection over advertisements with regards to jobs and housing.
But, yeah, I probably should have made that clearer in the response to the original poster who mentioned constitutional rights. Kinda wasn't thinking about the stupid semanticpart when I could address the meat of the moral issue .
Well, you are allowed to discriminate if its relevant to your ability to perform the job. For instance, a handicapped person could not sue under the ADA for a construction job (assuming they were incapable of doing it.)
Because that would be an unconstitutional abridgment of your right to free speech. Targeted advertising, by definition, involves my right to privacy.
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Is that put in the US constitution? Where? How did that work until the 1960's when blacks had less formal rights than humans? Or is this regulated just in "normal" laws?
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Uh, yeah.
The First and Fourteenth Amendments, just like I said.
It didn't, because it wasn't sufficiently clear, because there was no Equal Protections clause.
No, it's a limitation on government power found in the Constitution.
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Is that put in the US constitution? Where? How did that work until the 1960's when blacks had less formal rights than humans? Or is this regulated just in "normal" laws?
There were some seriously fucked up interpretations. At one time Citizens of African descent were considered 3/5ths of a human.
There has been conjecture and educated guesses that America's racial past will take around 200 years to recover from. We still have people pissed off about the Civil war.
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Not exactly correct. Slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person for Congressional representation, instead of a full person, and that's a good thing because that reduced the representation of slave states in Congress.
That's literally the only reason that clause exists in the Constitution, and it says nothing about race, only slave status.
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Uh, I'm pretty sure that means that your ad can't say you're looking for someone except for the nasty race(s), not that you can't target your ad towards one or another race. Eg if your ad says, "looking for white male programmer, age 20-30", you had better have a good lawyer.
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To extend your example, this is more like going to a predominantly white male university CS department and posting that you're looking for a programmer.
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Uhm... it says right in the part you quoted which part of the law it violates.
They have these other things, called statutes or "laws," that are in addition to the Constitution. The summary mentions 2 that are relevant here.
Wow, I know not to read the article or click any links, but you're taking alliteracy to a new level.
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Uhm... it says right in the part you quoted which part of the law it violates.
Just because the article says it violates the law doesn't make it so.
They have these other things, called statutes or "laws," that are in addition to the Constitution.
And they have still other things called courts who get to interpret both the laws and the constitution. There's no mention that courts have ruled on this situation yet.
The key thing I note is that both laws require the ad to indicate a preference. When you place the ad with Facebook you can indicate a preference for who the ad is targeted towards but that's not the same as the ad itself indicating a preference. Could be an interesting c
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Re:Not the same thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not the same thing (Score:5, Informative)
There is no law saying you have to market housing equally to all races.
Careful. There is no law that says you have to take affirmative measures to ensure that your housing ads reach all races equally, BUT it is illegal to INTENTIONALLY skew housing ads to disproportionately target, or avoid targeting, specific races. More info here [hud.gov].
So would it be illegal for someone advertising an apartment for rent to use Facebook's service? Maybe. If they were using it to ensure they were reaching all races equally, that would likely be legal. Otherwise, likely illegal.
The same is true for ads for employment and credit. Other advertisers face no such restrictions.
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So this appears to be an issue of the internet catching up with physical world than anything nefarious on Facebook's part.
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I believe you are reading too much into the reference you cited. The document doesn't declare anything illegal (except to the extent Fair Housing Act that it is based on does). In the case of selective use of adverting, for example, it says the following [emphasis added] :
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Really, is everyone here nuts?
Welcome to 2016.
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You just CAN'T SPECIFY PREFERENCE IN THE MARKETING ITSELF.
The part you're missing is that FACEBOOK IS OFFERING FOR YOU TO SPECIFY PREFERENCE. Duh. Nobody is saying it is illegal to choose one outlet or the other, it is illegal to offer the service of only advertising to specified races. Facebook markets a service that is race-restricted. That it is variable and anybody can discriminate against anybody doesn't matter. They're not allowed to advertise the service of intentionally discriminating based on race.
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Is it unethical to advertise on Univision, where the audience is 99% Hispanic?
No, but it would illegal to sell an advertising aggregation service where you promised to only buy ads that target certain races.
It is actually pretty obvious what the difference is; in one case you're making a public offer involving race, the other you're not.
These arguments are so weak, it really makes me have to "wonder" why they get raised? LOL no it doesn't, I know why hahaha
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No, but it would illegal to sell an advertising aggregation service where you promised to only buy ads that target certain races.
Can you please cite the law that makes this illegal?
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You didn't find it in the summary, or what? No, I'm not going to be your volunteer home health care spoon feeder, but thanks for offering.
If you actually take it upon yourself to look up the public information about this particular accusation, for example reading the article, you'll find out with a lot of specificity what the accusation is. You're asking ME for a cite, but unlike you, I'm not making stuff up and presenting an original position. It would be silly and redundant for everybody who talks about a
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You didn't find it in the summary, or what?
No, I didn't, and neither did you. The summary mentioned that it is illegal to discriminate when advertising for housing and employment. But there is no general prohibition against discrimination in advertising. If you think there is, then cite the law.
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Nor is advertising on a network that caters to a minority.
I see. So targeting ethnicities is wrong, but targeting minorities is fine. Thanks for clarifying that.
Now you're just being an ass, trying to twist his words. I don't agree with the anti-discrimination laws to begin with, and would rather make racists be public about it. But there is an obvious difference between specifically excluding an ethnic group by clicking an option that is just for that purpose, and choosing a TV channel that anyone of any ethnic group can watch.
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What the fuck are you talking about? There's lots of ads targeting men, from Grecian formula through various razors, aftershaves and deodorants, not too mention clothing such as underwear. These ads are shown on the white male channels as well or does Fox only advertise to minorities and women?
Trying to weasel out by splitting hairs (Score:5, Informative)
No, not really. The only purpose and intended effect of this construct is to achieve racial discrimination in who sees these properties for rent. What you're doing is trying to construct an excuse based on an extremely narrow and literal interpretation of the law cited in the article.
I am not a lawyer, but I really doubt whether a court would let either the advertiser or Facebook get away with such an obvious ploy.
However if you insist on arguing you can wiggle out of it by splitting semantic hairs, you might want to take a look at this site, which explains a little about anti-discrimination laws: http://civilrights.findlaw.com... [findlaw.com]
Check out the third item from the top in the list of banned actions: "Making housing unavailable". I'd say that deliberately flagging advertisements to exclude blacks, asians, and hispanics (as Facebook is offering as a service here) can be construed as "making housing unavailable" to those groups.
It's interesting to see Facebook doing this because it provides an extremely clear example of just how pervasive racial discrimination still is in the US.
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If you look at the OP it is saying that all targeted advertising is bad, which is ridiculous.
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You tacitly admit that Facebook's options squarely amount to offering a means for racial discrimination, but you argue that not all racial discrimination is to the detriment of the party discriminated against and hence not illegal.
A reasonable point. However I'd say that the one offering this mechanism (Facebook) has an obligation to take reasonable precautions that it's not used for illegal forms of racial discrimination.
See also: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/us... [findlaw.com] and specifically section
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I imagine it would be perfectly acceptable to, for example, only show ads for Asian food to Asians, especially since Internet ads are paid by view. And it would be motivated by good business sense rather than discrimination.
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The only purpose and intended effect of this construct is to achieve racial discrimination in who sees these properties for rent.
You are absolutely correct in this. The company responsible is breaking the law.
I really doubt whether a court would let either the advertiser or Facebook get away with such an obvious ploy.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is we (/.) see "Facebook" in an article and go all frothy mouthed; lawyers / courts see "Facebook" and dollar signs appear in their eyes. In this case however the infringing party is not Facebook, it's the advertiser, ProPublica.
While Facebook offers options to filter the target list for advertisements, including by race, there are good reasons for this. Imagine an advertising campaign for fake
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Housing is a very small portion of advertising, just because it is possible for this option to be used in an illegal way that doesn't make the option itself illegal.
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Your point basically is that you feel that an approach that would amount to "strict constructionism" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]) is the one and only legal theory that's acceptable.
Counter to what you make it out to be, that's an *opinion*, and a highly political one at that, rather than a fact.
One of the main purposes of the court system (in addition to weighing evidence) is to *interpret* laws in specific cases to see if they apply. Not even former justice Antonin Scalia
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True, one is illegal and the other is just morally dubious.
Well, actually both might be illegal, depending on the advert. If it can be shown that the intent was to exclude rather than merely target, for example. With property it's usually not that hard to prove.
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You're missing the point; it is not the advertising utilizing the facebook ad service that is accused of violating the law, it is facebook that is advertising the service of limiting the ads based on race. Facebook is the one offering the illegal service, not the person who buys it.
You identified a technical problem not in their claim, but rather in your understanding of it. It should have led you to self-correct.
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Such laws are bogus, in violation of the First Amendment
Keep reading. Let us know when you get to 14 [wikipedia.org]. Pay particular attention to Section 5, which states "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article".
The thing about the U.S. Constitution, is that you can't just pick and choose the parts you like.
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The Fourteenth applies to discrimination by governments, which I already said should remain illegal (sadly, it currently is not [governing.com]). I'm talking about that by private entities.
If you insist on the 14th being applicable to corporations, then it must apply to individuals too. A girl rejecting four Black suitors, but then going out with an Asian one would have to explain the statistics and prove herself not racist. Will you accept such laws too, or do you think, that w
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You have poor reading comprehension. Does not targeting group X with advertising:
* abridge any citizen's privileges or immunities? NO.
* deprive any citizen of life, liberty, or property? NO.
* deny any person equal protection of the law? NO.
Does it have anything whatever to do with proportional apportionment of representation? NO.
Does it have anything whatever to do with eligibility of candidates for President, Vice President, Senator, Representative, or holding civil or military office? NO.
In case you're ta
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no unless you had a policy of removing all postings by and or supporting %race% or removing all postings not by or supporting %race%
so NO "Orange postings only" or "Only Orange postings"
you can remove postings that are off topic and or offensive or course (and outdated postings canceled postings)
BTW The First Ammendment only covers Government or Government Enforced entities btw the full text is of course
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise the
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If I put up a community message board, and someone posts a discriminatory ad on it, have I "caused to be made" that ad
No, because you didn't induce anyone to put something illegal up there.
The "cause to be" clause is there to prevent someone from escaping culpability on a technicality because they personally didn't make, print, or publish the ad. A scumbag landlord can't use the defense of "Your Honor, I hired a designer to make that ad, and the newspaper is the one who printed and published it, therefore I'm not guilty." That isn't going to fly, because the scumbag landlord hired the designer (caused the ad to be made) an
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However, that would not be a Fair Housing Act issue. That act only addresses advertising of real estate goods and services - not hair products.
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Totally. But it does mean having that option in the Facebook advertisement control panel thingy is legit, but when used wrong, the advertiser should be punished hard.
Which is made trickier by the fact that its Facebook showing the ads, even if its someone else buying them. Facebook could micro manage the ads, but then its the same issue as Youtube trying to enforce copyright.
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Yep, that's what they're going to be left with; they're allowed to discriminate against Luddites in app provision, but not many others.
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Were the magnets just letters, or did they include a pre-made fully-formed n-word?
Is the complaint that facebook fails to detect all forms of racism in the ads submitted? Or is the claim actually that they allow a user to select race specifically, to actually indicate their preference to the facebook algorithm which then carries out a race-based selection process?
The answer is right in the summary; yes, facebook is accused of explicitly identifying people's race and offering the service of race-based ad sel
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Great, so they have a secondary function besides making me laugh.
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You don't even have to go that far. You might structure entire advertising campaigns, for the same product, for different communities and ethnicities.
Want to sell iPods to typical white folks? Maybe you aim Taylor Swift endorsements at them. Want to sell those same iPods to some other ethnicity? Maybe you pick a different celebrity endorsement. Maybe you pick different music to play in the ads. Maybe you hire an acclaimed black director to make a campaign aimed at blacks.