That's catchy, but doesn't address the crucial question of which people should be held accountable for using a tool in a discriminatory way. You could argue that the publisher bears some or all of that responsibility, and I'd be fine with that, but shouldn't the advertisers bear some too? Why is HUD only going after Facebook and not them? Hint: the advertisers don't have all of that juicy user data.
Due to it's algorithmic nature, Facebook ultimately decides every single post, ad, like, and person you see, and in what order. Creating a housing ad and targeting white people is not like putting an ad on the smooth jazz station, it is like having a storefront in the rich-whites-only section of the Facebook mall. In fact it's even worse because other people don't even know the rich-whites-only section exists, since they can never see it, even if they are your friend! I actually have a hard time imagining how an online system could reinforce existing class and race structures any more than Facebook currently does, short of disallowing users to become friends if it detects that this would be financially disadvantageous to allow.
Given a finite amount of law enforcement manpower, it makes sense to target the pimp first. Especially if they are national in scale and flaunting it.
Is it, in this case? Ad targeting has a zillion legitimate use cases, including some that are outright humanitarian. Yes, it can also be used in a discriminatory way, but Facebook already tried to address that in the cases HUD only nominally cares about. Phone numbers and ZIP codes can also be (and often are) used as proxies for race. Should HUD go after the phone companies and the postal service too? You could probably apply the same argument to Uber, Airbnb, and every other "gig economy" service as well. What you're suggesting is tantamount to making all targeted advertising illegal. If that's the argument you want to make, make it.
However, as a multi billion dollar ad company FB knows these options are illegal in other instances. I’m not even sure those other companies you mention are ad companies or give advertisers the option to discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race and religion like Facebook.
Last I used FB ads, the process included a submission of my ad to FB for review. Therefore, FB knows if an ad targets based on age, sex, race, and religion and I do think the onus shifts to them to throughly review these types of potentially illegal ads before publishing the same.
Certainly FB prohibits advertisers from publishing other types of illegal ads to avoid potential liability (try publishing a cigarette or alcohol ad targeting children) so it’s hard for them to bury their head in the sand on these matters and say they don’t bear any liability for the acts of their users.
Why limit it to ad companies now? Two posts ago you mentioned any service that is "by its very nature both discriminatory..." without such limitation.
> the onus shifts to them
All of it? One hundred percent? Even though they are now taking measures to weed out these illegal ads? Again why is HUD only going after Facebook and not any other company or the advertisers themselves?
> it’s hard for them to bury their head in the sand
They haven't. They've already taken action on this exact matter, meeting the approval of ACLU and the Fair Housing Alliance. Since when does HUD really have a higher standard than those?
I think you are misattributing someone’s else’s quote to me, in my comment you replied to I specifically state these filters can be used in some instance lawfully, but Again FB is a multi billion dollar ad company and is aware of the unlawful potential of these tools.
Discrimination certainly isn’t limited to ad companies, but again I dont think those other companies you reference in the gig economy offer options to only accept riders/guests of a certain age, sex, race or religion. Those types of filters are limited to online ads as far as I am aware. But please shed some light is those gig platforms allow drivers/hosts to filter who they do business with and discriminate against protected classes.
> All of it? One hundred percent? Even though they are now taking measures to weed out these illegal ads? Again why is HUD only going after Facebook and not any other company or the advertisers themselves?
Certainly both the advertiser and FB could be liable for discrimination. But yes I think FB dragged themselves in by #1 giving these options to users (knowing these filters are also protected classes of people and in certain industries will violate the law); and #2 Reviewing/approving these illegal ads before publication.
I certainly never claimed the individual advertisers could not be liable, “onus shifting” here essentially means FB was aware not only the filters used for these ads but they approved the ads themselves.
Answering further, it’s obvious tax payer dollars are more efficiently spent going after FB and ending the unlawful practices on the platform entirely than an indefinite game of cat and mouse with individual advertisers.
I'd love to see you try that reasoning with gun companies. I'm pro-gun-control myself, but the reaction you'd get would help to illuminate the difference between being efficient and being right. There are all sorts of things we could make illegal. There are all sorts of companies we could forbid from operating. It would be efficient as hell, but that's always the lure dangled by police-state proponents.
Otherwise arms dealers have a federal law that protects them in gun/ammo sales from the acts of their buyers.
That said notwithstanding federal protections arms dealers can be liable for the acts of their buyers if the seller knew or should have known the buyer was making the purchase to commit a crime.
Here FB knew or should have known they were being paid to publish an unlawful ad (at least factually FB knew the filters were applied, reviewed these ads and approved them for publication in violation of the law).
I’m not sure why you think preventing FB from knowingly publishing illegal ads is on par with anything else you are suggesting (ie “going after gun sellers”). Gun sales and ads are both legal...until they are not.
Why do you think it’s right to go after the ad creator only and allow FB to continue to profit on and facilitate the illegal acts themselves?
Never said or suggested any such thing. In fact I've explicitly said that assigning some responsibility to the publisher seems reasonable. What I find questionable is the singular targeting of one publisher but neither the advertisers nor other publishers. That's not how one fights for equality or justice, so there must be some other goal.
>That's not how one fights for equality or justice, so there must be some other goal.
It happens all the time, for example, low level drug dealers or even arms dealers are given immunity just for cooperation and just the chance to go after the suppliers. It’s easy to say well, there is some other goal, but generally the goal is to combat the illegal activity.
Another example, which I have been using for years is Uber. Many Uber drivers have been arrested and/or civilly fined for illegally operating rides for hire without a permit. Yet despite all the arrests no law enforcement ever went after the company but only the drivers. I think this is one of the biggest injustices of our time, you have a multi billion dollar tech company hiring “contractors” to knowing break the law (in those jurisdictions) and then only punishing the individuals who are basically being exploited (i say this because Uber knew the acitivity was illegal in those jurisdictions, but they kept hiring drivers and scheduling rides in violation of the law, whereas the drivers didn’t necessarily know they were being hired to provide illegal rides). In some cases Uber even paid bonuses to drivers to leave jurisdictions where operations were legal to give rides in jurisdictions where it was illegal.
Is that really equality and justice to you? If law enforcement went after uber instead of the driver is that really indiciative by itself of another goal rather than stopping the illegal activity?
If they only went after Uber, giving Lyft and traditional cab companies and the drivers for all of them a pass, then yeah, I'd suspect there was something besides fair enforcement of the law going on. That would go double if they were stretching the definition of the law to include Uber's actions when its drafters had no such intent, or if they were simultaneously going after Uber for doing and not doing the same thing (parallel to the flak Facebook gets both for censoring and not censoring content).
I love the arguments that amount to: "if we can't stop <bad thing> everywhere, we shouldn't bother stopping it here either". I'm not sure how one expects any kind of social progress to happen with that attitude.
> Is it, in this case? Ad targeting has a zillion legitimate use cases, including some that are outright humanitarian.
Let's be real. The kind of ad targeting that happens on the internet is something quite different than demographic targeting by sending flyers to certain zip codes or putting ads in certain magazines. Because the process is largely a black box and the ads are only visible to those being targeted it's nearly impossible to audit by watchdog groups or go after the parties who placed the ads. In the realm of commerce this leads to a lot of borderline scams targeting the ignorant. In politics, this leads to radicalization and weird conspiracy theories like QAnon.
At best, modern targeted ads are a way to convince people they need something they do not. Something that "classic" advertising did as well. At worst, it's a channel for misinformation, scams, and sometimes malware. Completely invisible to you and me because we're not the "target demographic".
It is called ‘redlining’.
42 U.S. Code § 3604. ...it shall be unlawful—
(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.
The law is clear. The only difference is that the publisher of the advertisement is Facebook instead of the New York Times web or newspaper.
As usual with law, not so much. Can you say with any certainty that "indicates any preference" doesn't refer to the content of the ad? Allowing an ad to be targeted in a discriminatory way might be wrong morally, but it's not at all clear that the law as written and (so far) interpreted by courts supports your conclusion.