
Facebook Accused by HUD of Housing Bias Over Use of Targeted Ads - okket
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/facebook-violated-fair-housing-act-with-ad-practice-hud-charges
======
CompelTechnic
I agree that facebook's advertising practices allowed for illegal
discrimination. A good case of "move fast and break things." Some journalists
go farther though, and suggest that even the concept of a credit score is
racist.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/your-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/your-
credit-score-is-racist-heres-why)

Consider the 2 possible worlds: 1\. One in which disadvantaged minorities have
poor credit because of their poor socioeconomic status. Once statistical
controls are used to control for socioeconomic status, all ethnic groups are
equivalent. 2\. One in which, even after controlling for socioeconomic status,
disadvantaged minorities still have worse credit than the general population.

In both of these worlds, race can be used as a weak predictor of credit
quality. Many of the moral claims made by The Guardian are absurd, and overly
protectionist.

>The insidious notion that our credit history speaks to our reliability as
human beings is largely taken for granted.

If you, as a business owner, had to choose to hire someone with a good credit
score or a bad one, all else being equal, what would you choose?
Conscientiousness and intelligence both correlate with socioeconomic status,
both being good traits for a worker.

~~~
brightball
I've really never understood the point of using credit scores when hiring.

I completely understand it when making decisions on actually loaning money,
leasing agreement, etc...

~~~
kingbirdy
If you're hiring someone who would have access to valuable information that
could be sold, who would have information before the market, or who could
potentially be paid to sabotage the company, it's important to ensure the
candidate has good credit so they're less likely to do those things, since
they at least wouldn't feel a financial pressure to do so and would only do it
out of greed.

~~~
aaomidi
Is there direct evidence this is true or is it just a "common sense" thing
that makes sense but might very well be false?

~~~
Kalium
Before I or others go looking for such, what would you consider an acceptable
standard of direct evidence?

~~~
aaomidi
I honestly don't have an opinion on it. It just seems something that's
repeated and accepted often and I'm being skeptical is all.

I will probably look into it myself too! So whatever you can add to the
discussion is great :)

------
piokoch
I am not sure I understand the way Fair Housing Act is enforced. Facebook
allows ads targeting. This is how it earns money. Apparently some people
decided that they want to advertise houses to white Christians population,
which is illegal in the USA - shouldn't be HUD after those who configured such
criteria, not Facebook?

Facebook provided only a tool. Nobody is after hardware store because a hammer
bought there was used to kill someone.

~~~
mastax
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.

~~~
bilbo0s
Yep.

> _or cause to be made..._

Key words here.

Sure, the government should be going after individual advertisers too, but
selective prosecution or not, Facebook is clearly in violation.

~~~
randyrand
How did Facebook cause this to be made? The wording implies that it's meant to
address the administrators that demanded such an ad be made. The ones who
decided to make it. Who caused it to be made.

Facebook is just the hardware store in this sense. They provide tools. And you
make the billboard. They did not cause this to be made.

edit: They still may be responsible for publishing it, which is illegal. I
would think its a much better argument to go after them for that then the
'cause' to be made' argument.

~~~
kyrra
It's really an argument of platform vs publisher. Google, Facebook, and others
have been treated as platforms (it's really what the DMCA protected). But as
they have been grown larger, governments want to treat them more like
publishers and hold them accountable for the content that they put on their
site (treating them more like publishers).

~~~
notyourday
It seems to me that Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc all want to be treated like
a publisher -- they keep making publisher like decisions on who can and who
cannot use their platform in whatever way that they decide.

Sort of like CBS or Fox can and do decide what kind of ads they would or they
would not air.

I think Facebook/Google/Twitter/etc are going to find out that by being a
publisher one has to actually act as a publisher all the time and not just
when it is convenient.

------
LarryDarrell
We have regulations on the books that are there as a result of 100 years of
painful human experience.

Wave a computer screen in someone's face and all of a sudden it's a different
plane of existence and some people feel like these laws don't apply. I'm glad
to see there is finally being some push back.

~~~
notacoward
> some people feel like these laws don't apply

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.

~~~
bobydonahue
I disagree, if the tool/service is by its very nature both discriminatory and
a 'black box', the company who made/provides it is responsible for what it
does. You can't just make millions selling an ethically questionable service
and shift the blame to your customers who you kept in the dark.

~~~
notacoward
> if the tool/service is by its very nature both discriminatory

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.

~~~
will_brown
I Agree certain ads can legitimately target on the basis of age, sex, race and
religions.

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.

~~~
notacoward
> I’m not even sure those other companies you mention are ad companies

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?

~~~
will_brown
> 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.

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.

~~~
notacoward
> it’s obvious tax payer dollars are more efficiently spent going after FB

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.

~~~
will_brown
The Federal Government does go after illegal arms dealers, so I’m not sure
your point.

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?

~~~
notacoward
> Why do you think it’s right to go after the ad creator only

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.

~~~
will_brown
The Gov can and maybe even will go after the individual advertisers.

>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?

~~~
notacoward
> If law enforcement went after uber

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).

------
throwaway5752
_“We’re surprised by HUD’s decision, as we’ve been working with them to
address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent” ad
discrimination, the company said in a statement. It added that it had been
negotiating with the housing agency over the issue, but that the talks had
broken down because federal officials were seeking access to too much user
information “without adequate safeguards.”_

Interesting. I also wonder if they are going after the landlords who knowingly
discriminated using Facebook as a platform.

~~~
save_ferris
Could definitely see this. They could also be trying to prevent setting a
data-sharing precedent that other Federal agencies will look to utilize.

~~~
throwaway5752
Yes - I just submitted a related article
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516173))
that has additional details on the data access request and reports that the
investigation has spread to Twitter and Google.

------
tschellenbach
Weird that they go after the ad platform instead of the advertisers. Pretty
sure magazines also publish stats about their members enabling advertisers to
specifically target a certain demographic. Actually the NYTimes does this as
well: [https://nytmediakit.com/index.php?p=sunday-
magazine](https://nytmediakit.com/index.php?p=sunday-magazine)

~~~
tantalor
Nothing prevents racial minorities purchasing a magazine, unlike FB ads.

------
iscrewyou
They were accused before.

I thought this was old news. Weren't they being accused of showing certain
results to a certain demographic because the advertisers got to call the shots
on who saw the ads?

This is them getting charged. I think there is a distinction. Now lawyers are
involved.

~~~
ams6110
That's fine for some things. E.g. showing an ad for specific hair care
products to black people.

Not OK for housing/rental ads, credit/mortgage, etc. Facebook should have
known better from the start and never enabled that kind of targeting for those
types of ads.

~~~
tfha
Why is it okay sometimes but not all the time? If there are predatory ads for
mortgages, there will be predatory ads for snacks and video games as well.

The goal of most advertising is to change your consumer behaviors regardless
of what best for the consumer. In my opinion it's a huge net negative on
society.

~~~
duado
This has nothing to do with predatory ads. It’s because these ad policies can
be used to exclude certain races from certain housing which is illegal.

------
40acres
Big tech is going to have to learn how to balance automation with social
history. Race based housing discrimination has a long history in America, it's
hard to believe that no one in a position of power to question these methods
brought up how these ads could be used to discriminate.

The biggest benefit that diversity will have on big tech is alternative views
that prevent these embarrassments from occuring. Seems every few months
another company comes to the realization that it's models simply don't have
the social context to be effective.

------
reaperducer
There's sometimes a lot of chatter here on HN about a liberal arts education
being worthless.

I have to wonder if more tech employees had taken classes in ethics,
philosophy, and other "soft" subjects, if people in the industry would have a
better capacity to make decisions that get their companies in trouble less
often. Or at least be able to explain to their superiors _why_ a particular
business decision is bad.

~~~
bluedino
>> There's sometimes a lot of chatter here on HN about a liberal arts
education being worthless.

Plenty of people here will argue that you shouldn't take out $80k in student
loans to get a liberal arts degree. Worthelss in a ROI sense

But there are a large amount of people here with pretty liberal views. So they
certain don't disagree with the viewpoint.

~~~
noer
Full disclosure: I have a liberal arts degree.

When I was looking at colleges, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do
with the rest of my life. In high school, I really hated science and math
classes. Years later I realized that I actually didn't but the single math
teacher I had for four years of high school (it was a small school, I just had
bad luck with what teachers were assigned to the classes I took). If I had
gone to college with the goal of a career that I thought I would have been
suited for, I probably would be doing something much different.

I picked a school that offered me the opportunity to study a broad range of
topics and had a curriculum based in seminars & discussion. Rather than
learning technical subject or a trade, I learned how to accomplish tasks
independently. What I feel I got were the skills to teach myself anything.
Sure I'd need to learn harder career based skills, but I knew how to best
teach myself something IMO, that's no different than a career paths that
requires additional schooling to get a job. Looking back, I think it's
ridiculous that we ask 16-18 year olds to make decisions about their careers.

~~~
ummonk
_> Looking back, I think it's ridiculous that we ask 16-18 year olds to make
decisions about their careers._

And just how far do you think extended adolescence should last? People have to
start transitioning into adulthood and preparing for career and life at some
point, even if they aren't fully mature and ready for it.

~~~
Consultant32452
It's interesting to me that there's no single legal definition of adulthood.
Voting, drinking, signing contracts, joining military, count as a dependent on
insurance, buy a gun, rent a car... We don't seem to be able to decide, as a
culture, when a person is responsible for themselves.

------
harrumph
Facebook ads in the residential real estate space absolutely allow violation
of the 1968 Fair Housing Act on the part of real estate agents, sellers,
marketers and brokers. The mechanism of FB ad targeting inherently grants
permission to exclude groups from ad targeting by way of discriminating on the
basis of demographic detail. The FHA was passed to redress the widespread and
normalized practices of racial and socioeconomic exclusion from home
ownership, and as such FB's practice is a major step backwards in fairness and
transparency for persons participating in housing markets.

Does anybody know if FB's practice has been attacked in court sooner than
this?

------
yardie
They're probably going to settle. This is not new and there is already
precedent[1] about these sort of postings. Even a halfwit counsel could have
told them this wasn't allowed.

I've been seeing this go on for a while and I'm not surprised at all. I'm more
surprised it took this long. As soon as they added rentals and properties to
their marketplace they should have immediately tweaked their algorithms to not
fall outside the law

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=554032...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5540324)

------
charliesharding
Hot on the heels of their announcement yesterday. The irony is sweet

~~~
bilbo0s
That's likely _WHY_ they announced they were getting rid of extremists. They
would have had knowledge of these charges today, as well as knowledge of other
things the government is looking into vis-a-vis their business. So I'd imagine
their lawyers are preempting a lot of things because they seem to be entering
an age where there is potential to be charged even if you are secondarily
associated with criminal activity. (Potential not just for Facebook, but for
everyone else too.)

It's a crazy time right now, because you never know what some person you
provided a service for might do.

~~~
mcguire
" _...you never know what some person you provided a service for might do._ "

Well, you _are_ in the business of knowing everything inferrable about all
people, everywhere.

~~~
cr0sh
> knowing everything inferrable about all people, everywhere.

Which makes me wonder if the FAANGs and others will go this route - basically
robo-ban people from their services who meet certain criteria (or maybe no
criteria at all - maybe some kind of neural network or something decides who
should be allowed to use the service and who shouldn't).

Make the ban based on various obvious and non-obvious metrics. Like credit
score, comments or whatnot made using the service, how they treated other
people or products in their comments - as well as things like how they typed,
or moved their mouse around, or other info from their browser (or even side-
channel info if that can be done from a browser - which it probably can).

So once banned - even if they tried to go back with a completely different
computer, home address, IP, etc - they'd still eventually get flagged as being
banned in the past.

Then have a service that all of them use to make a centralized "blacklist".

It wouldn't surprise me if they don't already have this in testing in some
manner.

------
caprese
Why are they not just subpoening Facebook to go after the people that actually
did the ad targeting? It is probably happening but it would make more sense,
and Facebook would understand the stance of the enforcement agency. Since HUD
or a private citizen already is doing this, Facebook probably offered non-
answers or something cocky and then got slapped with this.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
They might be. It's got to be easier from an enforcement point of view to go
after publishers than all the individuals who place ads. They have limited
resources, just like the rest of us.

------
anonymfus
What we need is a law to make all advertisements and their targeting criteria
publicly listed. It will make finding out about such problems much easier.

------
SudoEpoch
This is kind of ironic in many aspects but the most is one of members under
HUD worked for Cambridge Analytica.

------
Brain_Thief
It's important to keep in mind that FaceBook is an enterprise founded by an
individual who appears to have many of the traits of sociopathy, and that an
overwhelming amount of shady, anti-privacy, socially-destructive, and
downright exploitative behavior has been credibly attributed to them over the
years. The second sentence of TFA claims that the HUD's opinion of FaceBook is
that the company "...enables and encourages discrimination based on things
like race and religion, as well as sex, by restricting who can see housing-
related ads on its platforms and across the Internet." This should come as no
surprise from a company with the kind of track record that FaceBook has; the
company's founding purpose was, after all, to judge people based on
superficial traits.

Rot of this kind, when located in the head of an organization or creature,
does not go away easily. It has been obvious for some time now that the
culture in the leadership echelons of FaceBook is deeply amoral and
disinterested in societal health. Although it's a very touchy subject
(especially around tech sites), I think there's a strong justification to
start really questioning whether or not a person who is interested in the
health of society can continue working for FaceBook.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
I find it interesting that you are getting downvotes, but no replies. Come on
people, if you disagree, why not say why you disagree? Just downvoting isn't
helping the discussion.

------
fareesh
I remember reading an Obama administration report about this in 2016, but
nothing ever came out of it. Nice to see Dr. Carson take up this issue.

