
Facebook lets advertisers exclude users by race - angry-hacker
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/facebook-lets-advertisers-exclude-users-by-race/
======
mdpm
If I hired someone to stand outside and cover up some share of the offerings
on my store's billboard, clearly varying only by the perceived race of whoever
was walking by, the discrimination here would be violently evident.

Regardless of specific laws and statutes this may violate, it's an affront to
every part of the progress we've made as a species. In my country, South
Africa, this tool seems to be literally against the constitutional principles
(Chapter 2, ss 9, 3-4).

Regardless of moral or legal questions even, do we not need to query what the
societal cost is of allowing corporations to be facile and duplicitous,
automatically, at the scale of enterprises like Facebook?

------
chinese_dan
I see no problem here. There aren't excluding certain races from purchasing
their products, merely excluding them from seeing the advertising for it.

If I'm a white male, why would I want to see advertisements for skincare
products designed for African-American women?

The advertisers would lose money as well, because instead of advertising to
me, they could advertise it to someone that has a higher chance of
clicking/buying.

I also find it a little hypocritical that users regularly use adblock toward
websites they dislike (could be political or racial)..and this is allowed.

~~~
elcct
Because you might have African-American girlfriend?

~~~
judahmeek
But do the statistics support advertising to all white males in order to
convert the white males that both have African-American girlfriends and are
educated enough about her hygiene habits/preferences to suggest/buy this cream
for her?

I think that there are likely to be some products/services that would benefit
from advertising based on race. Most products/services would likely benefit
more from advertising based on culture though (since a single race can
comprise of many cultures).

------
irq-1
This is clearly discrimination: they literally excluded people based on
ethnicity.

It'll be interesting to see if Facebook is financially liable for
discrimination in ads. Unlike the NYT, Facebook built the tools to
discriminate. Filtering the ads also gives an advantage to NYT (and Youtube,
etc..) by raising the markets barrier to entry.

------
amelius
FB claims that they don't leak information about the user, other than for
advertising purposes, but is this really the case?

Here's how information leaks: if I want to know which people have an affinity
with (e.g.) cats, I could target these users on facebook, and then use an
advertisement where I sell (e.g.) coffee. Now, as a seller, I know if people
click on the coffee link, these people are likely to be cat lovers.

So FB _cannot claim_ that the information stays within their premises.

Of course the same holds for Google and others.

Hence all targeted advertisements should be made illegal until this problem is
fixed. Good luck! :)

------
mordocai
Obviously not a lawyer but however you feel about it I don't think this
technically violates the fair housing act by the letter of the law.

The advertisement itself(as seen by the public) does not indicate "any
preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex,
handicap, familial status, or national origin."

Rather, who is shown the advertisement is limited. You can argue that targeted
advertising should be illegal in certain circumstances, but AFAIK there are
currently no laws governing it.

~~~
chadgeidel
I'm struggling with this comment. The article is a conversation answering this
very question. A lawyer thinks it does violate the Act, because the Act makes
this form of "targeted advertising" illegal.

I might of course disagree with that assessment, but I would defer to a lawyer
to make a case why it wouldn't be illegal.

~~~
mordocai
There is a single quote from a single lawyer and all it says is that he thinks
it is a violation. There is nothing from the lawyer concerning targeted
advertising specifically. From my point of view, he saw the UI screenshot and
screamed that it was a violation without any further research (the article
backs this up since it says he gasped and immediately responded).

I don't find that a very convincing legal assessment and the article seems to
assume that it is violating the act due to that statement with no proof or
reasoning backing it up.

Edit: To me, this is no different from choosing to mail advertisements to
various zip codes or neighborhoods based on demographics.

~~~
ubernostrum
You admit you are not a lawyer, but give and prefer your own opinion on it
over that of someone who is a lawyer in the relevant field, and when
confronted with the opinion of the lawyer in the relevant field you choose the
least charitable explanation of how that lawyer came to give the opinion, in
order to continue preferring your view over the lawyer's.

But tech people don't have blind spots or problems when it comes to issues
like race, nope, no sir.

------
throw553552
About same thing as putting your ad to a paper whose readers belong to a
certain demographic group or just posting it to the country club notice board.

~~~
clydethefrog
Are there still news papers and country clubs with an apartheid policy?

------
runamok
Pretty sure this has been done by gender for a long time but perhaps that was
just by content categories...

