
HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook - google_censors
https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_18_085
======
samfisher83
These are the specific points they are going after:

    
    
        -display housing ads either only to men or women;
        -not show ads to Facebook users interested in an "assistance dog," "mobility scooter," "accessibility" or "deaf culture";   
        -not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in "child care" or "parenting," or show ads only to users with children above a specified age;
        -to display/not display ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in a particular place of worship, religion or tenet, such as the "Christian Church," "Sikhism," "Hinduism," or the "Bible."
        -not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in "Latin America," "Canada," "Southeast Asia," "China," "Honduras," or "Somalia."
        -draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes.
    

The 1st 4 should have never been allowed. This is a 50 year old law. Its not
like its something new.

~~~
tekromancr
The geotargeting polygon was literally RED!?!

I can believe that being an oversight, but holy Shit those optics... yikes

~~~
jahewson
For those outside the US who may be wondering why this is so significant:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining)

~~~
nasredin
>>In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services
to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or
communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices.

------
nostromo
In most verticals marketers will have a set of ads for different demographics:
say gay, suburban, latino, black, Spanish-speaking, etc. Each of those
campaigns will have different creative: for example, a real estate ad targeted
to latinos will have an image showing a smiling latino couple. I can
understand why the marketer would not want to show this creative to white,
black, or asians -- given that they're targeting creative for a different
group of people. This sort of practice seems fairly benign -- it's not about
denying housing, but about targeting creative for different subgroups.

As a gay person, I see this all over the web. Smiling happy gay people buying
cars or real estate or whatever. I imagine that behind each of these ads
straight people have been de-selected for seeing this ad. But that doesn't
mean these advertisers hate straight people or would deny a straight customer.
It just means that for that specific ad and creative they were targeting gay
people.

~~~
skywhopper
You're missing the point, though, which is not that the advertisers can target
the models in the ads, but so they can choose _not_ to show ads to
"undesireable" people, like people with kids, or of a certain ethnicity or
religion. This sort of practice is an extremely pervasive problem that has led
to enormous amounts of systemic inequality.

~~~
dennisgorelik
What is the problem with not showing rental ads to people with kids?

If landlord does not want to rent out to people with kids - I (as a parent
with kids) do NOT want to see that ad.

How forcing landlord to advertise to categories they do not want to serve --
would help to anybody?

~~~
trashcan
The problem is that it is illegal:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act)
You can't choose to rent based on familial status.

~~~
trashcan
I can't reply to you cabaalis, but the difference is excluding
(discriminating) versus targeting. Targeting is legal, discriminating is not.

As in the Alamo Drafthouse is more than welcome to have a women's night event
for a particular movie, but if they refuse men at the door solely for their
gender, that is illegal.

[https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/alamo-drafthouse-
admi...](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/alamo-drafthouse-admits-
violation-for-women-only-wonder-woman-screening/994661866)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> the difference is excluding (discriminating) versus targeting. Targeting is
> legal, discriminating is not.

Can you articulate a difference between "targeting" and "discriminating",
other than one being legal and one being illegal?

~~~
fjsolwmv
Targeting means saying it's a Foo themed event, discriminating means banning
non-Foo from entry.

~~~
Nasrudith
I wonder about the distinctions legally given machine based tools and context
insensitivity and what separates identical results.

If one had a list of proxies for every ethnicity and individually assigned all
but one would it qualify as legal targeting or illegal discrimination?

Would this format derived from US ethnicity census be legal: [x] White []
Black or African American [x] American Indian or Alaska Native [x] Asian or
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

but a query of 'exclude "Black or African American"' be considered illegal
even if they both map to an abbreviated form of hexadecimal B? Although it
could be argued that by making the discriminators have to work harder to
figure out how to exercise bigotry in advertising is a reasonable baseline.

The spirit of the law is clear but I wonder about the mechanics of it for
avoiding all of the gross loopholes and technicalities and enforceability.
Just advertising home listings in 'Farmer's Weekly' (for sake of example
assuming it has an overwhelmingly white subscriber base) for selling an
exurban house wouldn't prove discriminatory intent and short of memos giving
racist directives to the marketing department being released.

------
IBM
Here's the ProPublica stories that led to this

[https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-
advertisers...](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers-
exclude-users-by-race)

[https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-
disc...](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-
discrimination-housing-race-sex-national-origin)

~~~
google_censors
ProPublica really did an amazing job of sticking with this, considering that
HUD knew what was happening and still dropped the investigation in 2016.

~~~
ne0sapi3n
HUD Secretary at the time was Julian Castro.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Castro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Castro)

~~~
brennebeck
Doing a quick scan of his wiki I don’t see anything relevant? Or are you
trying to imply something in particular and I just missed it?

~~~
ne0sapi3n
Simply pointing out the leader of the department at fault. In my humble
opinion, this is useful for holding bad government actors responsible.

------
yardie
How did they not see this coming. Are they not familiar with another dotcom
called Craigslist who had to deal with this very same regulation years ago.
Their counsel either wasn't aware of what FB marketplace was doing or didn't
know about FHA laws.

> draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users
> who live in specific zip codes.

This alone is really damn damning. I'm going to go out on a limb and say their
counsel is really young and didn't know this was a problem. There is a lot of
history in that sentence alone.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users
> who live in specific zip codes.

This is actually somewhat odd in this context. Obviously if you're advertising
housing in Boston you don't want to be advertising it to people in Washington
or China, or probably even Springfield. So you need some way to specify a set
of regions and zip code is the obvious way of doing that.

~~~
philipov
No, specifying individual zip codes sounds like the worst way to do that. The
obvious way is to have a max distance slider.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
Except that that doesn't work when you're advertising housing in Florida and
you want to advertise to people in the Northeast who want to retire somewhere
warm but not people in the South who already live somewhere warm.

~~~
cowsandmilk
It is almost as if we have geographic areas larger than zip codes such as
cities, states, regions, that can be targeted without running afoul of laws
about targeted advertising of real estate.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
If you exclude all of Oakland specifically because it's full of minorities,
you're discriminating based on race. If you exclude one tiny neighborhood
because it's on the other side of a mountain and is physically a part of a
different area than it's administratively a part of, you aren't. Granularity
isn't the problem.

And state or regional real estate advertising doesn't work because basically
nobody in San Francisco is looking for housing in Los Angeles or vice versa,
much less San Francisco and Phoenix.

------
austincheney
Here are the likely relevant laws in question:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964)

By law you cannot discriminate by any designation of protected class, which
includes not only parties to a business transaction but also messaging and
opportunities there upon.

I do understand why Facebook would allow ad display filtering by race and
other demographic categorizations since they are a media organization who
sells advertising. Whether or not that practice is morally qualified or
agreeable it makes sense from a business perspective (oh how I do detest
advertising).

What I don't get is why Facebook would allow ad suppliers the option to set
values to these filters. Facebook has the data to make optimal demographic
determinations for a geographically centered business market. Perhaps this
indicates that either Facebook isn't very good at that or that ad supplies
prefer to perform their own independent research out of distrust or lack of
availability from Facebook.

Anyway, this does look like a valid complaint. I wouldn't just sue Facebook
though. I would also seek for discovery of the ad suppliers and sue them as
well. Facebook is just the proxy here. Somebody is making a deliberate
determination to racial profile in violation of the spirit of the law.

\---

EDIT. See the third bullet point here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Types...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Types_of_banned_discrimination)

~~~
briandear
My question would be if an advertiser advertised housing in a demographically
targeted publication, for example, a publication focused only on single gay
men, if that would necessarily function as discrimination since single mothers
wouldn’t be reading that publication, nor those ads. Facebook allows
demographic targeting that just happens to be more “effective,” but no more
discriminatory that the way conventional targeted “offline” advertising works
now. Advertising housing in a newsletter for Jewish people, does that not
result in discrimination against non Jews since they wouldn’t see that ad? It
seems that as long as the housing and the ad content itself weren’t
discriminatory, the law would seem to be upheld. What this suit seems to be
saying is that you are obligated to advertise your housing where every
protected group would have an equal chance of seeing the ad, anything less
would be discriminatory right? The very slippery slope is that housing ads
themselves could only appear in official, government publications otherwise
some group or another would be discriminated against since they wouldn’t
normally see the ad.

~~~
austincheney
I find those to be distinctly different qualities even if the end result is
similar. The distinguishing factor is: _Who is performing the discrimination?_

In one example the discrimination is deliberately performed by an ad supplier.
In the other example the discrimination is performed by the audience of the
offline publication. I come to this conclusion because it is the audience that
is choosing which demographically targeted publications to purchase or read.
People cannot legally discriminate against themselves.

That distinction is also a paradox for Facebook. You cannot be a supplier to
everybody and simultaneously to a targeted individual as chosen by
individual's inputs. Facebook tries to have both sides of a coin by allowing
users maximum flexibility in content preferences and also provide that power
to ad suppliers to use for precision targeting.

~~~
maxerickson
In the example, the building owner/manager isn't randomly choosing a
publication to put their ad in. They are acting to discriminate against people
that don't (or are merely highly unlikely to) read the magazine.

~~~
austincheney
So? Are the ads in the selected publication forcefully shown to a person
otherwise not choosing to read the publication or forcefully denied from a
person choosing to read the publication?

Discrimination, in this regard, only occurs if somebody is made to consume or
is denied content on the basis of a protected class status.

~~~
maxerickson
So you didn't really address it in that sense in your other comment.

I guess I don't see how ad targeting involves force either (it just happens to
be effective), but whatever.

------
koenigdavidmj
Seems to me that the courts and the public are becoming much less tolerant of
companies operating on Google scale, where most things are decided by
algorithms and a human never sees it at all. This might serve as an upper
bound on the size of future companies: if you might have liability for every
single ad or comment you let someone post, you’re going to want human review
of all that content.

~~~
JamisonM
I think that the public and the courts are correctly recognizing that the
excuse that a human never sees something doesn't exempt an organization of the
regulatory burden borne by companies where the work is done proportionally
more by humans.

If Facebook, Google, et. al want to run advertising companies they have to
properly conduct themselves in the current regulatory environment, if their
competitive advantage really just boils down to the fact that they are
ignoring the rules then there should be a market correction based on them
being subject to actual enforcement.

(This is separate from how anyone feels about the actual rules, I think it is
reasonable to say that everyone should agree that if there are rules they
should be universally applied.)

~~~
vt_throwaway123
The problem here is that this is the exact opposite of what's going on - the
competitive advantage of many smaller companies these days is that they are
not even close to being compliant with regulations but platforms often
tolerate them because they are not responsible for counterparty compliance.

If you do however put that onus on the platforms, then it's entirely
predictable that platforms will cut ties with small businesses. This is more
or less what happened with GDPR - lots of small ad-tech players became large
liabilities for others in the value chain, leading to more consolidation in
the industry. Outside of technology, it's common for certain types of services
or tools not to be made aware to small-time customers. The technology industry
at large and the large tech companies in particular have so far bucked this
trend in a way that created a huge amount of value for the world at large, but
this doesn't have to be this way.

~~~
JamisonM
In this case who are the smaller companies you are referring to specifically?

If the small companies in question are gaining competitive advantage through
non-compliance that makes them viable enterprises then it is good and correct
that they should be forced to change their business model and compete with the
same rules as everyone else, right?

I don't understand what you are saying with this: "Outside of technology, it's
common for certain types of services or tools not to be made aware to small-
time customers. The technology industry at large and the large tech companies
in particular have so far bucked this trend in a way that created a huge
amount of value for the world at large.."

------
LanceH
So if I get a radio license and then broadcast an illegal ad, it's the FCC's
fault.

Why is everyone trying so hard to turn facebook (and google, twitter, etc...)
into a filter on everything we say?

When facebook gets held responsible for all content in all jurisdiction it
will err on the side of proscription. It was only about 10 years ago that many
now acceptable (mandatory even) progressive positions were not in favor.

It won't be another day or two before there is another article bemoaning
google acquiescing to China. Pick one. I'll take the one that is open, the
crazies broadcast their fake news and we have the occasional illegal ad.

By the way, if these ads are illegal and conducted through facebook, how
_easy_ is it for the FHA to look up who is responsible and go after them.
Their whole job is done for them. Going after Facebook is sensational and
feels good I guess.

~~~
twblalock
Facebook is the publisher of the ads and is responsible for obeying the law.

If someone asks Facebook to publish an illegal ad, Facebook should not do it.

This is not a free speech issue, or a political speech issue. Nobody is
censoring progressive or conservative positions in this case. It's an issue of
legality in real estate advertising under a framework of laws that were
written decades ago.

~~~
j16sdiz
The problem is: These kind of censorship of use generated content can't scale
up to all jurisdiction.

Maybe we should acknowledge it is impossible to make a global, legal,
Facebook-like website.

~~~
guelo
Society doesn't have to accommodate Facebook's need to scale their businesses.
If Facebook is unable to comply with a jurisdiction's laws then it shouldn't
do business in that jurisdiction.

------
dantheman
A question if you run ads and tune your ad buy to focus on those people with
the highest conversion rate. To reduce the amount you're spending by targeting
the ads, does this mean that's not allowed?

It looks like this is to ensure advertisement reaches all protected
categories. Can this mean that one would be forced to advertise in magazines
that cater to different audiences? To guarantee a certain subset of the
population is covered?

Thinking of facebook like traditional media doesn't really work. If we allow
people to choose where they're advertising, by definition they're targeting.
It'd be like randomly buying ads in magazines and papers.

At the end of the day, it seems more like landlords intent for targeting is
more important than anything and that is where the fault lies.

If you had a building in an area that catered to people speaking a minority
language (5%) of the population; can you target speakers of that language or
do you have to spend 20x?

~~~
dibstern
The issue is not focusing on demographics, it’s excluding demographics. The
law states you cannot exclude certain demographics. Facebook is allowing that.

Nothing is preventing an atheist from reading a Christian magazine, or some
non-expected audience member from reading an ad targeted at a general
audience. The problem is when you control the viewers on an individual level,
as Facebook does.

~~~
azernik
Actually, targeting of ads to certain publications _is_ illegal in the field
of housing; search for "selective use of advertising media or content" at
[https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF](https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF)

------
AdamM12
Why is Facebook in trouble for this and not the persons who actually placed
the ads? They aren't the ones renting the real estate. They don't own it.
Government overreach imo.

Edit: grammatical mistakes

~~~
astura
They are enforcing this part of the FHA (emphasis mine):

>(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.

If people actually did place housing discrimination ads they'd also be in
violation of the law.

(In general, laws are usually written in a way to prevent profiting off of
illegal behavior)

~~~
dennisgorelik
But these ads do NOT indicate any preference. These ads simply do not run for
the people outside of target audience.

The main reason why racial preferences are not allowed to get published -- is
because it reinforces public bias toward specific race. But if ads are simply
not shown to some group -- what is the problem with that?

~~~
astura
>if ads are simply not shown to some group -- what is the problem with that?

It's illegal, that's the problem.

------
kryogen1c
This complaint seems like its shooting itself in the foot - discrimination
isn't inherently bad. When you hire, you discriminate based on ability. When
you date, you discriminate in a number of ways like beauty, personality, etc.
If you're selling ads for wheelchairs you want to discriminate for people with
disabilities. If your houses aren't wheelchair accessible, you want your ads
to discriminate against people with disabilities. If there are "majority-
minority zip codes" then maybe advertising against the demographic is a waste
of your time and money.

The idea that we should operate without discrimination is a toothless
platitude with little bearing on reality. It is not Facebooks responsibility
to change reality because they are able to accurately quantify and qualify
it's existence, and sell ads based on their findings.

~~~
james-mcelwain
It is, however, Facebook's obligation to abide by the law, particularly 50
year old laws with decades of settled case law.

~~~
dennisgorelik
The law is against publishing discriminatory ads (discriminatory wordings that
encouraged racial hate).

Facebook ad audience filtering -- is a very different tool.

------
RightMillennial
> The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions
> _including print and online advertisement_ on the basis of race, color,
> national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status.

 _Emphasis mine._

If the FHA does indeed prohibit online advertisement discriminating on those
criteria, this sounds pretty damning to Facebook. Those are some of the key
features of Facebook ads.

~~~
burkaman
[https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-
act-2](https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2) Sec. 804 (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.

This clearly covers online or any other kind of ad.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Looks like if this goes to trial it's all going to hinge on exactly what _" To
publish an advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling,
with an intention to make a preference based on race, color, ..."_ means. To
me that seems quite clearly to refer to the ad itself - that the ad cannot
make a preference, implicitly or explicitly, for any group. However, who the
ad is shown to would seem to be another issue altogether.

If this applies even in who the ads is shown to, think about the implications.
What if I run an ad in e.g. "Golf Digest Weekly"? Would that be unlawful for
that publication to actually publish? What if I place a billboard in a high
income area? Is the billboard renter liable? Is my ad unlawful? If I place a
for-sale sign in the yard of a vacant house in a high-end neighborhood, is
that unlawful as well?

I'd like to think the HUD has thought out their case and it's implications,
but I don't see how you can take their interpretation of this law without
practically destroying all housing ads - which is clearly not their intent. So
I'm very anxious to see how this plays out in court!

~~~
burkaman
Yes, your examples are potentially unlawful. See HUD's guidelines here:
[https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF](https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF)

> § 109.25 Selective use of advertising media or content.

> (a) Selective geographic advertisements. Such selective use may involve the
> strategic placement of billboards; brochure advertisements distributed
> within a limited geographic area by hand or in the mail; advertising in
> particular geographic coverage editions of major metropolitan newspapers or
> in newspapers of limited circulation which are mainly advertising vehicles
> for reaching a particular segment of the community; or displays or
> announcements available only in selected sales offices.

If this sounds burdensome, it's supposed to be, changing society and
correcting centuries of inequality and discrimination requires significant
active effort.

Also remember that intent and reasonable expectations matter. You as an
individual with limited means and no legal advice would be held to a different
standard than Facebook, a corporation with many orders of magnitude more
responsibility.

Finally, remember that law is not code. The Fair Housing Act is a tool to be
used judiciously by humans to correct wrongs, not a precise standard that can
be applied in the same way to every situation. It's not possible to write a
law that anticipates every possible scenario, that's why we write relatively
vague laws and involve humans at every step of the process.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
You can't conflate issues here. There are two major questions in play:

1) Is it unlawful for the advertiser to publish advertisements that may result
in an individual selectively advertising? There seems to be no law or guidance
even suggesting that the answer is yes here. For instance, under your guidance
the billboard owner (who then rents it to the advertiser) would not be liable
for not ensuring that the advertiser was advertising in a sufficiently broad,
or random, variety of locations to fulfill the legal regulations. Facebook in
this case is not the person placing the advertisements - but the venue of
advertisement.

2) Is it unlawful for a person to advertise without complete demographic
representation? This is not what this case is about, though it's an
interesting question. The HUD's guidance makes this quite clear though, like
you mention, that is guidance from the HUD and not necessarily the law itself.
Government agencies tend to take very broad positions on laws, but these
interpretations do not always hold up in the courts. It would be interesting
to see how this point is argued from both sides, though this is a tangential
issue.

This case is quite peculiar though since the HUD release seems to be building
a case based on #2, yet targeting a defendant was would be implied from #1.
This seems highly inconsistent, so again - it should be very interesting to
see how this case develops.

~~~
vuln
Not the OP but all Facebook had to do was put up a simple click through when
posting a housing ad. Something like - "This listing must comply with Federal
law, by posting you claim full responsibility." and a link to the law.

In your example if I was the billboard owner and someone wanted to display an
ad that was federally regulated I would absolve my liability by making the
customer sign off on the fact that their ad complies with federal law.

Just seems so simple. I guess the money blinded them. Seems the status quo for
Facebook.

------
iamleppert
Wow, this page is pretty damning evidence:

[https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-
homes](https://www.facebook.com/business/success/quadrant-homes)

It basically is showing that Facebook knowingly implemented a system to
discriminate against people. Even the stock photos are full of white people.

Here's hoping HUD makes a big example out of them and fines them to the
fullest extent of the law.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Huh. The stock photo at the top of that link for me has a picture of a white
man, an Asian woman, and an Asian-looking little girl. There are no other
stock photos on the page.

[https://imgur.com/gHzzBXU](https://imgur.com/gHzzBXU)

~~~
shard972
I mean, asians look white to me.

------
beager
It would seem fairly straightforward for Facebook to collect information about
whether an advertisement pertains to something that has anti-discriminatory
regulations tied to it (housing, employment).

I generally agree that FB should not be allowed to permit users to segment
these types of advertisements by the dimensions claimed. However, what piques
my curiosity here is whether “indirect” discrimination in choice of
advertising medium constitutes discriminatory practice.

For instance, what if some of these advertisers, instead of segmenting
directly by race to target whites only, targeted fans of pages that were
obviously but not specifically comprised of whites (e.g., “Irish American
Heritage” or “Blonde Hair Tips”). Would there be a case to be made for
discrimination? And against whom?

~~~
nv-vn
It's easy until you realize how global Facebook's audience is. What happens if
California makes this type of advertising illegal for hotels and Sri Lanka
makes it illegal for movie theaters? Now repeat for every possible advertising
law.

~~~
StudentStuff
The telecom industry is already 40 years down this path, the level of
regulations, state, county and city E911 fees and operating regulations is
impressive. If scrappy, insolvent players like Sprint can write code to comply
with onerous, numerous and varying regulations across 7000 different LATAs,
Facebook can handle writing code to comply with national laws in 200 odd
countries.

------
0x00000000
>and/or zip code.

>effectively limit housing options for these protected classes

I have head of zip code being protected or personally identifiable information
but never a protected class

Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to
discrimination against people over the age of 40.

~~~
astura
>Also fun fact, "age" as a protected class in the US only refers to
discrimination against people over the age of 40.

In employment law, not housing law.

~~~
0x00000000
As far as I know HOPA is the only federal law affecting housing age and it
allows them to create "senior only" communities. So it is effectively the
same. Older people can discriminate against younger people but younger people
cannot discriminate against older people.

~~~
astura
>Older people can discriminate against younger people

No.

Family status is protected in housing law, so no, a landlord can't refuse to
rent to someone because they have young children.

Exceptions apply for certain senior living communities, but they are 55+, not
40+.

~~~
wtvanhest
That is not what OP is saying...

------
AndyMcConachie
There is interesting precedent in the form of Fair Housing Council of San
Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Council_of_San_Fe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Council_of_San_Fernando_Valley_v._Roommates.com,_LLC)

Worth reading the case to understand what FB is up against here.

------
sklivvz1971
What many commenters do not understand here is that Facebook is making a
killing by allowing this kind of illegal targeting. They know what's going on
but they clearly don't care unless they get sued. In the meanwhile they made
millions/forced the competition out/made it "standard"...

------
linsomniac
I do technology at an MLS and we police our listings and have agents change
terminology that may violate fair housing laws, including things like "man
cave" (a frequent violation). For a while we were also contacting agents if
they used drone photos of the property, because of restrictions on the
commercial use of drones.

------
jimnotgym
Can anyone tell me what kind of penalty Facebook could face for this? Are we
talking

a) A token fine

b) A fine large enough that it sees investors taking action against the
management

c) A fine that is an existential threat to Facebook

d) Jail time for executives

e) Forced closure

I just wonder if anyone can suggest how serious this could be if they are
found to be I the wrong?

~~~
pertsix
Just a small fine and remedial action to resolve the violation. This also
happens to traditional businesses.

~~~
jimnotgym
So I guess it might turn out to have been ap good business decision to ignore
the law?

~~~
vuln
Yes, the fine whatever it is will be magnitudes less than the profit they made
off of the ad discrimination.

------
a13n
Why is this Facebook's fault? Wouldn't this be the advertiser's fault for
choosing those filters?

You can also conduct illegal activity via Facebook messenger of groups, does
that make it Facebook's fault?

~~~
azernik
Because the law happens to make the advertising platforms liable. It does so
because enforcing this as an individual crime is impractical for the
government, so it essentially outsources the work to advertising publishers.

See e.g. a similar case brought against the New York Times in the 80s, and the
resulting investment by the Times in a reviewing process where humans went
through submitted ads looking for discrimination.

------
rachelbythebay
This is why you need a wide range of experiences represented in your company.
Monocultures tend to miss things that are obvious to others.

------
coolaliasbro
I'm no fan of Facebook or discrimination, and am happy to see this pursued by
the federal government, but I personally would gladly be excluded from all
ads, ranging from billboards to search results to food packaging.

I guess what I'm thinking is, if Facebook had a feature (maybe it does, I'm
not a user) allowing members to search housing classifieds, and if that
feature allowed listing agents to discriminate against who saw their listings
in results, that would be straight up bullshit. But, AFAIK, anyone can
anonymously search different housing listing platforms for available housing
wherever they want to live, so I guess I'm just struggling to see how housing
advertising is worth this sort of scrutiny at all.

Again, I stress that discrimination is fucked and I'm happy to see something
being done about it on any level, at all. I just feel like there are surely
bigger fish to fry and spending resources on pursuing to whom/how ads are
delivered doesn't seem like the best investment.

~~~
rtkwe
The issue here is that Facebook is explicitly allowing the property owners to
make discriminatory housing ads. It doesn't matter how many other sources
there are because publishers are also forbidden from making discriminatory ads
in the law.

In the end they're going to have to either stop allowing housing ads or remove
any filtering for those ads that relate to a protected class (including any
fine grained geographic filters too probably because those turn into a racial
proxy pretty quickly) and anything that's a significant proxy for something
like race.

------
throw2016
It would seem the education system has failed significantly if the serious
issues with segregation, racism and discrimination that have plagued the
country remain unknown to the extent that half the commentators here don't
seem to understand why laws were passed, why Facebook is wrong and why things
are the way they are.

It's as if they don't understand how widespread racism, discrimination and
segregation was, how it was systematically enforced, how it occurred and
continues to occur and why these measures remain important.

Given this affected parties must continue the fight because that's the only
way to confront selective memories, denial and ignorance.

------
jjm
We simply have laws for these.

If the laws still do not deter then increase the penalty until they’re adhered
to. Such that it will leave no such question as to whose responsibility it is.

If we do not want such laws then repeal them.

Only the rule of law will prevail here.

Simply know the rules, or pay the penalty.

------
sillysaurus3
From an ethics point of view, why is this illegal?

~~~
joelhaasnoot
This creates ghettos

~~~
4ad
This law was created in 1968 IIRC. Ghettos still exist today, in 2018, 50
years laters. It seems to me the law is not doing anything.

------
ralusek
I'm not in the business of defending Facebook, I neither like their business
model nor their product...but this is an unreasonable accusation levied
against them.

Their business is "I know ABCDEF about people, who would you like me to
distribute your content to?"

Distributing content to people along ABCDE and F demographics happens to be
legal in almost every case. The exception is specific housing discrimination
laws that prevent filtering on ABC, etc.

It is outrageously unreasonable to expect Facebook to be responsible for the
specific laws surrounding advertising for their customers. They provide
targeted advertising. If their client targets demographics using an
advertising strategy that happens to be illegal within their own industry, the
responsibility is on the client/landlord, not Facebook. This is very much akin
to blaming Microsoft for someone hacking from a Windows PC, or blaming the
phonebook for a Chinese person emphasizing cold calls to the "Lee" portion of
the book. If their actions are illegal, so be it, but the automatic assumption
that the platform is responsible for the content that their users produce is
fundamentally flawed.

~~~
azernik
The law on housing discrimination is quite clear and even-handed on this topic
- ad distributors are liable for discriminatory ads they publish (the law
specifically includes "publishes" in the list of criminal verbs, and this was
actually enforced in court against the New York Times in the 80s); and
selectively-targeted ads are discriminatory (see Code of Federal Regulations
section 109.25, down near the bottom of
[https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF](https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF))

------
scarface74
The law is quite clear about an advertiser’s liability.

[https://fairhousing.com/legal-research/hud-
resources/adverti...](https://fairhousing.com/legal-research/hud-
resources/advertisements-under-804c-fair-housing-act-jan-9-1995)

 _Section 804(c) of the Act prohibits the making, printing and publishing of
advertisements which state a preference, limitation or discrimination on the
basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national
origin. The prohibition applies to publishers, such as newspapers and
directories, as well as to persons and entities who place real estate
advertisements. It also applies to advertisements where the underlying
property may be exempt from the provisions of the Act, but where the
advertisement itself violates the Act. See 42 U.S.C. 3603 (b).

Publishers and advertisers are responsible under the Act for making, printing,
or publishing an advertisement that violates the Act on its face. Thus, they
should not publish or cause to be published an advertisement that on its face
expresses a preference, limitation or discrimination on the basis of race,
color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. To the
extent that either the Advertising Guidelines or the case law do not state
that particular terms or phrases (or closely comparable terms) may violate the
Act, a publisher is not liable under the Act for advertisements which, in the
context of the usage in a particular advertisement, might indicate a
preference, limitation or discrimination, but where such a preference is not
readily apparent to an ordinary reader. Therefore, complaints will not be
accepted against publishers concerning advertisements where the language might
or might not be viewed as being used in a discriminatory context._

As far as roommates....

 _For example, Intake staff should not accept a complaint against a newspaper
for running an advertisement which includes the phrase female roommate wanted
because the advertisement does not indicate whether the requirements for the
shared living exception have been met. Publishers can rely on the
representations of the individual placing the ad that shared living
arrangements apply to the property in question. Persons placing such
advertisements, however, are responsible for satisfying the conditions for the
exemption. Thus, an ad for a female roommate could result in liability for the
person placing the ad if the housing being advertised is actually a separate
dwelling unit without shared living spaces. See 24 CFR 109.20._

------
00__00
This is simply WEBLINING, an online version of the 1960s Redlining.

See [http://www.netopia.eu/weblining-why-eating-at-nandos-
could-c...](http://www.netopia.eu/weblining-why-eating-at-nandos-could-cost-
you-your-mortgage/)

------
mancerayder
The adtech industry is probably having emergency meetings with its legal
staff. What's this imply for targeted advertising, and how are we going to
police the legality of which ads can target what given laws against
discrimination?

------
mindslight
We all knew that creating/adopting centralized communication platforms ("Web
2.0") was going to end badly, but that was where the money (temporarily) was.
Now that they've taken over our culture, it's not surprising that every small
time censor is showing up with their demands.

(Also, as we're going through an $ideology-scare, a disclaimer: I'm not
criticizing the ultimate goal of anti-discrimination housing laws, nor even
HUD for going after Faceboot here - but really pointing out the utterly
predictable no-win situation these centralizing companies have created for
themselves)

~~~
abraham_lincoln
How is it futile to comply with the law and not help facilitate
discrimination?

Reminiscent of IBM's history.

~~~
mindslight
The communication middlemen make their profits by being _scalable_ \-
surveilling users for a few bucks each doesn't add up to much otherwise.
Policing speech is not scalable - hence now trying to bolt on the bare minimum
after the fact using low paid workers.

~~~
abraham_lincoln
Yeah, surveilling is not profitable, unless reimbursed by the government.

------
hippich
So if I pretend in front of facebook I am poor, I can see less ads? Sounds
good :)

------
JDWolf
I would prefer to have no ads.

------
peter_retief
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: www.hud.gov

------
gok
Facebook goes after Trump’s attack dog (Alex Jones); Trump’s department goes
after Facebook.

------
h4b4n3r0
I was skeptical, but upon reading TFA, they do have a point.

~~~
tomjen3
Yeah, although it seems mostly to be by accident: you can target you facebook
ads to whatever group you want, so your bra sales only target women, or your
stroller offers only target people with smaller children.

Personally I think the law is bullshit: what is interesting, and what we want
to prevent, isn't landlords who can target only some group, but landlords who
_do_.

But I guess facebook makes for an interesting target.

~~~
sincerely
Maybe there's something inherently wrong with targeted ads...

~~~
quotemstr
Is it inherently wrong to publish an ad in the Wall Street Journal and not
then publish the same ad in Teen Vogue?

~~~
jogjayr
No. Because anyone can buy the WSJ and Teen Vogue and see the ad.

If you're excluded from being targeted by an FB ad you have no chance of
seeing it. If that exclusion criteria forms the basis of a protected class and
the ad in question relates to housing, that's illegal. So it's a very narrow
set of behaviors that are wrong here, not all of ad targeting.

E.g. it's probably not illegal (or even morally wrong) to exclude someone who
is interested in topics such as "Hinduism" from ads for beef jerky. Even
though religion is a protected class, beef jerky isn't housing.

Similarly, it's (probably) not wrong to exclude low-income people from ads for
your high-end condo because AFAIK income isn't a protected class.

~~~
quotemstr
I'm not sure it's that easy. The complaint dings Facebook for allowing
targeting of ads by zip code. Isn't it the case in principle that people
choose to live in certain areas? I don't think that discriminating on the
basis of voluntary association that happens to correlate with protected group
membership is enough to spare one from HUD's gaze.

~~~
jogjayr
That's just one of the charges. The others are even more damning - targeting
by sex, religion or country of origin.

------
Karishma1234
Essentially an archaic organisation using an archaic law against a modern ad
delivery platform. What a travesty.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? It's
destructive of what this site exists for, the site guidelines ask you not to,
and we ban accounts that continue doing it, regardless of their politics.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
Karishma1234
I am unable to see any political arguments here. Need to take off your hippie
glasses I suppose.

~~~
dang
The issue is that you've been using HN primarily for that, which is against
the site guidelines. You've also used more than one account to do it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

I've banned this account until we get some indication that you want to use HN
as intended, and will from now on.

------
HugoDaniel
Is complaining against Facebook the new black ?

------
cm2012
So they want FB to make "housing" ads a separate, algorithmically tracked
entity like political ads are. Not a fan - where would it end?

~~~
azernik
It would end where the specific categories of advertising are not the ones
specifically covered by legislation. Off the top of my head - housing,
employment, and political campaigning.

------
emilfihlman
I don't really see how this should be against the law. It is only advertising.

~~~
MBCook
So you should be allowed to advertise anything even if illegal?

Like hitman services?

------
UncleEntity
I'm not really seeing how it's Facebook's job to enforce this particular law
as opposed to the HUD whose job it is to go after landlords/sellers doing the
_actual_ discriminating.

Just because the advertiser can use these tools to discriminate doesn't mean
they actually do or mean they aren't 100% personally responsible to comply
with the law.

I was kind of under the impression there were checks and balances to prevent
these sorts of governmental fishing expeditions...

~~~
MBCook
Because the text of the law literally says it is.

This isn’t a question of an agency interpretating a law to mean X, it’s right
there in the text.

It was written with newspaper classifieds in mind (and probably other things).
But it clearly applies.

~~~
UncleEntity
If you ignore the section which prohibits overt (and blatantly illegal)
discrimination then the section which applies to this case is the "intention
to discriminate" clause which requires Facebook to determine _intent_ behind
the targeting of the advertisements.

And, as we all know, nobody wants Facebook to be the Thought Police. Umm,
well...most people don't want Facebook to be the Thought Police but that's
besides the point.

Now (if HUD's arguments are valid) Facebook needs to determine if a landlord
trying to run an efficient ad campaign or is making sure the "wrong kind of
people" don't apply to be tenants. Either way the burden of proof is on
Facebook since they are directly accountable for the thought processes of a
third party simply by giving them the ability to discriminate against
prospective tenants while (one would hope) not intending to discriminate
against anyone themselves.

So, yes, I'm sticking by my original opinion that it isn't Facebook's
responsibility to do HUD's job of rooting out the bad actors.

~~~
MBCook
> If you ignore the section which prohibits overt (and blatantly illegal)
> discrimination

Why should we ignore it? It sounds like Facebook allows you to use those exact
things to target your ad. Thus the problem.

~~~
UncleEntity
Because it applies to cases like "only WASP's need apply" and is clearly not
what HUD is concerned with here.

Absolutely nobody is arguing that Facebook isn't liable in such a case because
it's clearly spelled out in the letter of the law.

~~~
MBCook
I would think HUD would be very concerned about the fact you can run a housing
ad and choose “don’t show the black people“.

Yes it’s blatant discrimination, and that’s exactly the problem.

The ability to say “don’t show to fans of Soulja Boy“ could certainly be a big
problem, and I’m sure they might look into that too, but the first one is
still there.

------
modells
0) Not to justify but to give a similar example: CL rarely takes (or took in
the past) down zillions of postings that are/were blatantly illegal, i.e.,
“Seeking roommate: female ONLY.”

1) People are going to discriminate, even if it’s illegal. Heck, I was at a
restaurant and an Israeli couple were smugly grinning about how they were
discriminating against a candidate whom was “male and too old” by wasting his
time and not calling them back. It sucks, but you can’t legislate not being an
asshat, even with ostensibly anti-asshat laws.

~~~
astura
Craigslist doesn't take down "Seeking roommate: female ONLY" because those ads
are not illegal.

[https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA](https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA)

>Federal Fair Housing laws prohibit discriminatory advertising in all housing,
regardless of how large or small the property. However, as discussed below,
advertising which expresses a preference based upon sex is allowed in shared
living situations where tenants will share a bathroom, kitchen, or other
common area.

>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.

I HAVE seen Craigslist take down apartment ads that list religious
preferences.

------
quotemstr
Followed to its logical conclusion, this sort of complaint prohibits all ad
targeting, and that's a very bad thing.

Practically any criterion X you might use to restrict an ad's audience will
have non-uniform correlations with group demographics. You can't wish away
these correlations: they're true facts about the world. These non-uniform
correlations allow activists to argue that allowing advertisers to target
based on X is therefore prohibited discrimination. They can repeat this
process for all X.

Now, you might argue that ad targeting is bad. That's a common position on HN.
But it's not true: ad targeting is good for advertisers, since it enables more
efficient advertising, and it's good for users, since it subjects them to less
noise and exposes them to ads more likely to be relevant to them. Ad targeting
also undergirds practically the entire tech economy. That probably means you,
reader of this comment.

Where exactly should restrictions on ad targeting stop?

EDIT: For clarity:

Step 1: HUD files a complaint against Facebook for allowing ad targeting based
on certain criteria.

Step 2: Facebook bans advertising targeting based on the criteria in the HUD
complaint.

Step 3: Advertisers react by targeting based on demographic correlates of the
categories from step #1.

Step 4: HUD notices that ads are still getting delivered more to one group
than another.

GOTO STEP #1.

There's no clear point at which this process stops. Demographic correlates are
numerous and strong. Are you going to ban all of them? That's tantamount to
banning ad targeting generally!

~~~
freeone3000
It doesn't expose me to relevant ads. I live in Montreal. My last three
twitter ads were for a drug (reported as illegal) something about a new york
lawsuit against an oil company? And for a pizza place which doesn't exist in
my country.

User targeted ads do not produce better ads, despite everyone selling ads
saying so.

~~~
quotemstr
Am I supposed to accept your anecdote as evidence? I mean, on the one hand, we
have the massive and continued success of platforms that tailor ads to target
audiences, and on the other, we have freeone3000's complaint about a pizza ad
not being relevant.

Ad targeting works. That's a fact. You can argue that we should kill ad
targeting anyway, that's fine. You can make that case, and I'd disagree. But
to flatly deny that ad targeting works? That's adopting a private set of
alternative facts, and if you do that, we can't have a conversation.

~~~
freeone3000
Have you seen targeted ads that do work? An advertisement for a product you
actually want?

~~~
quotemstr
Yes. Do you have an argument based on evidence, or at least reason, or are we
going to continue like this?

~~~
freeone3000
Your arguments are irrelevant because they do not match my experiences. Are
you telling me to disbelieve my eyes?

