Why does Craigslist censor rental postings containing gender keywords | Hacker News Reader

Why does Craigslist censor rental postings containing gender keywords

14 pointshui-zheng26 comments

One my friend wanted to post a rental listing last week on craigslist. In it, there is a description like this: "One of the rooms is rented to a 4th-year male student, and we look for a respectful tenant to rent the other room."

however, the system doesn't allow the posting to be published, citing the reason that the keyword "male" is used. It's an automatic block. No human review or flagging.

It seems craigslist blocks rental posting with gender keyword regardless of the intention of the word's usage.

Why does Craigslist does that? Is it to comply with some law? or is it because of some potential legal liability as the host of classified advertisements? Is it a technical reason?

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The Fair Housing Act: Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), as amended, prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18), and handicap (disability) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Fair_Housing_and_Equ...]

The Fair Housing Act does not apply to roommates or when you sublet someone living in your own home (which you will continue to occupy), and this posting appears to be an example of that. The shared housing market is something that a lot of craigslist ads target.

For more information about this, see https://fairhousing.foxrothschild.com/2012/03/articles/fha-b...

The post was just trying to say who currently lives there, not who's allowed to, and even if it were trying to say who's allowed to, the Fair Housing Act has an exception that allows sex discrimination when a unit has multiple tenants.

yes, i know that's law. Do you think this listing above are discriminating any gender?

if you read the wordings carefully, it is describing the gender of the other person living there, just to give more information about the place. it does not demand the gender of rental candidates.

The simple explanation is that CL probably uses a blocklist as opposed to an in-house NLP algorithm that understands the specific context in which the Fair Housing Act is not being violated.

Why is it Craigslist's burden to enforce the law? Presumably, if some law were being violated a potential renter could sue, no?

CL follows US Fair Housing law for US listings. They may treat roommate vs. full-rental listings differently, see:

Shared Housing Exemption -- If you are advertising a shared housing unit, in which tenants will be sharing a bathroom, kitchen, or other common area, you may express a preference based upon sex only.

https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA#roommates

It may help to post to rooms and shares specifically.

You may get more appropriate feedback through CL's own support forums (moniored by staff:

https://forums.craigslist.org/?areaID=11&forumID=9

Community housing discussion (user-discussion):

https://forums.craigslist.org/?areaID=11&forumID=6

this listing doesn't express a preference based upon sex.

it only describes the gender of the other person living there, just to give more information about the place. it does not demand the gender of rental candidates.

Is there laws that prohibit providing details about the gender of the people living in the place?

You asked for what the reason was.

Several people have told you the reason.

They've pointed you at the specific law and CL guidance in quesion.

It seems you simply don't like the answer. I'm afraid we're unable to help you with that particular problem.

As I and some other commenters explained, I don't think the law and CL guidance you provided are applicable to this listing. but thanks anyway. I think it's more likely that craigslist just don't want to deal with liability or something, so they just censor all postings with gender keywords, including those that doesn't violate law and CL guidance.

Yeh we noticed the same thing, facebook and offerup do not have this issue. It maybe that craigslist has turned incredible woke and dismissed the idea of gender lol. I suggest you use a site like https://allcraigslistsearch.com to find an ad that is live and has a catchy title that you can copy.

Are you doing rooms/shared or apartments? They might have a different filter.

it's not. the landlord is just to post the listing to find a tenant who will share the space with another person. also, this listing only describes the gender of the person who already living there. it doesn't demand or state any preference on the sex of the new tenant.

What I mean is, the Craigslist section for rooms/shared might allow the word “male” while it’s prohibited in other rental categories. But maybe it’s harsher if the user makes multiple postings, if something like that distinguishes landlords from renters.

I assume it's to dissuade creepy ads that offer rent discounts based on sex/age/appearance.

In my opinion it keeps listings looking more professional. Should gender matter here?

Use of gender probably also invites bad actors that leads to a disproportionate amount of support work.

If you think about it more. it does.

if the landlord can not provide the gender of the tenant who already living there, they ended up receiving so many inquiries and calls from women from who one of the very first questions is "Is the tenant living there a girl or guy?" Then the landlord has to reply "he is a guy." and then they walk away. It's a waste of everyone's time and effort.

> Should gender matter here?

Isn't it common and normal for women to not want to live with men they don't know?

A guy also may not feel comfortable with women he doesn't know. There's less possibility for drama of certain types if roommates are the same gender. There are more risks for women, but knowing the gender of strangers you might room with is a risk minimization heuristic.

Craigslist just used a low effort filter to prevent a large number of potentially illegal listings from ever being posted. Saves their moderators from wasting time on idiots. Even if it wastes a bunch of the end user's time, it doesn't cost CL as much to handle complaints as it would handling legal fees.

that's what I am curious. I think maybe the website viewers flagging is not sufficient to prevent the illegal listings.

I am curious if anyone knows how the moderators and end-user flagging works and how effective they are in a website at such a scale.

> Use of gender probably also invites bad actors that leads to a disproportionate amount of support work.

could you elaborate more how this listing might more likely to lead to bad actors?

Craigslist got infected with wokeness

not really, they're just trying to avoid headaches with illegal listings.

I thought the whole point of Section 230's existence was that sites wouldn't have to do hamfisted automatic moderation like this to avoid legal liability.

Even if they're not legally liable, my guess is they were spending a non-trivial amount of time on the issue, including dealing with complaints.

I also think they might just trying to avoid headaches with illegal listings. I think maybe the human flagging is not sufficient to prevent illegal listings?

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