you know, of all the things i could have seen facebook being charged with by a government in these past few years... housing discrimination was not the one i had on my radar. but congrats to them...
you know, of all the things i could have seen facebook being charged with by a government in these past few years... housing discrimination was not the one i had on my radar. but congrats to them for somehow finding another place to compound their legal troubles. this is what has resulted in these charges being levied:
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”
ProPublica first raised concerns over housing discrimination on Facebook in 2016, when reporters found that the “ethnic affinities” tool could be used to exclude black or hispanic users from seeing specific ads. If those ads were for housing or employment opportunities, the targeting could easily violate federal law. At the time, Facebook had no internal safeguards in place to prevent such targeting.
"“We’re disappointed by today’s developments,” Facebook says"
Facebook has struggled to effectively address the possibility of discriminatory ad targeting. The company pledged to step up anti-discrimination enforcement in the wake of ProPublica’s reporting, but a followup report in 2017 found the same problems persisted nearly a year later.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I would sincerely hope that wasn't the intent on Facebook's part, but I can definitely see how that would be utilized in such a way by racist organizations...
That actually makes a lot of sense. I would sincerely hope that wasn't the intent on Facebook's part, but I can definitely see how that would be utilized in such a way by racist organizations and/or organizations with racist clients.
The problem is that Facebook never seems to think before it adds features. I don't doubt that this was an unintended consequence, but somehow no one inside Facebook raised the question "could...
The problem is that Facebook never seems to think before it adds features. I don't doubt that this was an unintended consequence, but somehow no one inside Facebook raised the question "could adding a way to discriminate by ethnicity cause problems?"
you know, of all the things i could have seen facebook being charged with by a government in these past few years... housing discrimination was not the one i had on my radar. but congrats to them for somehow finding another place to compound their legal troubles. this is what has resulted in these charges being levied:
That actually makes a lot of sense. I would sincerely hope that wasn't the intent on Facebook's part, but I can definitely see how that would be utilized in such a way by racist organizations and/or organizations with racist clients.
The problem is that Facebook never seems to think before it adds features. I don't doubt that this was an unintended consequence, but somehow no one inside Facebook raised the question "could adding a way to discriminate by ethnicity cause problems?"
Chances are somebody raised the question, but the higher-ups just wanted to get it out the door as fast as possible so the issue was ignored.