I think they're saying that the tool may have been used like this:

1) Create an ad targeting straight couples, and hide it from gay couples. 2) Create an ad targeting gay couples, and hide it from straight couples.

If you query for "is anyone running an ad hidden from gay couples", this would return "yes".

However, my hunch (hope?) is that the prosecution was clever enough to account for this, and are specifically finding ad campaigns which are "unbalanced" (eg; there is no ad targeting group X).

Sounds reminiscent of the separate but equal argument

It seems rather easy to solve to me.

Are the adds structured to exclude certain groups from certain properties: Problem

Are the adds structured to engage each group as much as possible: No problem.

There might be some grey area where you decide not to market certain properties to certain groups, because you think they aren't interested rather then because you don't want them.

I have kids and am of Muslim origin and I have absolutely no problem with this:

> _not_ to show ads to "undesireable" people, like people with kids, or of a certain religion

What if I have a bar in Vegas almost exclusively frequented by young people in their twenties who go their to get drunk and meet singles. Why would I want to waste money showing an ad to people with kids who will not be interested and bring way less conversions than people with no kids in their twenties? What if I open a delicatessen shop that makes most of its business on porc meat and liquor, would I get a lot of conversions by paying to show such an ad to Muslims or would I be wasting money? What you want is advertisers to show their ads to people who are not interested and lose their money. That doesn't seem fair to me. People of different family situation (kids or no kids) or religions don't always share the same interests and that's ok.

That's totally fine; the law only cares about specific markets of life-altering importance like housing, employment, and probably a couple of others that I can't think of off the top of my head.

This isn’t a blanket law against everything. Your bar ad for twenty-somethings for example is perfectly fine and exactly what everyone would do.

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?

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

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...

Targeting is not legal when it comes to real estate advertising.

> 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?

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

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.

That's just a municipal ordinance and not a Constitutional result. It's not much of a result.

I live in Austin and support the Drafthouse's lighthearted attempt to offer women an opportunity to enjoy themselves by themselves.

Listen, in most cities they turn away men based on gender, or make them pay a cover, while they let well-dressed women in. That is their business model. I guess they can claim that men's attraction to women is a compelling business reason, which I believe may be an exception to the anti-discrimination laws. Similar to women-only gyms saying that women's desire to avoid men while working out is a compelling business reason.

I am not a lawyer but it always struck me as unfair to a whole gender to treat them differently when they want to enter nightclubs. But of course this policy is also very ageist, biased against heavyset people etc. So do we ban that as well, since it's not something people can control?

Both situations you have cited are actually probably in violation of the law.

The issue is that nobody is really going to be bothered to spend the money to haul those things into court.

If I'm willing to spend that much money, I can apply that same amount of money and wind up using it far more effectively than getting into a specific club or gym.

I am sure there are plenty of people with money to burn if they could win such a case and make a point in the national news. In fact, they did and LOST. I don’t think such a case is winnable. Even by a seasoned lawyer.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/judge-rules-nightclub-en...

http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/dude-sues-melbourne-nightclub-...

Even a place which excludes men openly is allowed to operate, though this is borderlin. Lucille Roberts was a successful chain of female-only gyms advertising itself nationwide as just for women.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/04/women-only-social-c...

I understand and agree that it's wrong. On a purely theoretical level, I think the question is philosophical. They're not turning these people away, just not trying to draw them in. This happens elsewhere in society, right or wrong. Examples: gay bars, "black" churches, biker establishments.

It’s is specifically illegal to advertise real estate based on such criteria.

https://nationalfairhousing.org/responsibleadvertising/

Could you please explain how exactly Fair Housing Act makes Facebook filtering illegal?

Lack of advertising is not the same as "refuse to sell".

It says right on the wiki page: Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, disability or national origin.

Tech has changed so you can do the targeting. You are violating the spirit of the law. The point is if you make sure blacks, Mexicans, or women can't see your ad you are trying to exclude them.

But privately filtering who this ad will show to -- is NOT the same as publicly "advertising ... indicating preference".

> You are violating the spirit of the law.

No.

The spirit of the law is to prohibit public racial propaganda. The spirit of the law is NOT about hunting down private biases.

> The spirit of the law is to prohibit public racial propaganda. The spirit of the law is NOT about hunting down private biases.

I have no idea what you’re talking about with the “propaganda”, but everything you need to know is right there in the announcement: “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. HUD's Secretary-initiated complaint follows the Department's investigation into Facebook's advertising platform which includes targeting tools that enable advertisers to filter prospective tenants or homebuyers based on these protected classes.”

So both the spirit and letter of the law forbid discrimination, and they are arguing that Facebook enables illegal discrimination on their platform.

> discrimination in housing transactions

"Advertising housing" is NOT "housing transaction". Transaction happens when landlord and renter signing renting agreement.

The FHA clearly regulates housing advertising.

>>(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.

There is no indication of preference/limitation/discrimination in the content that reaches the end user of Facebook.

The lengths at which you are going to rationalize racism just astounds me.

Answer me this. How on Facebook you would expect an excluded person to be able to know about the sale?

They wouldn't. The housing listing doesn't exist for them.

How do you see this as fair?!

I am blown away by all the casual racism all throughout this thread.

I am convinced half these commenters are just being disingenuous just for the sake of it. These sorts of cases are settled and straightforward, we have a half century of case law plus multiple publications from HUD that directly address this issue. Craigslist actually does an excellent job of summarizing the laws and giving specific examples of illegal advertisements.

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

That link says nothing about targeted ads. It talks about the content of the advertisements.

Mind you, I do think that ads targeted only to e.g. certain races are crappy and probably violate the law, but that certainly isn't as obvious from the links people are providing.

It may be easier to believe they are being disingenuous but the real answer is probably that they are in fact racist.

Its a hard truth to swallow.

The rest of this isn't directed just at you astura.

If this was some random Facebook or 4chan comment would you be so quick to come to that rationalization?

I feel we like to think the individuals we associate with on HN are like minded. To admit they aren't is almost a personal affront. To keep the disillusion going we must rationalize and make up excuses for them or how they behave.

But sometimes a duck is a duck.

Give me a break. Not everybody that disagrees with you is a racist. Landlord that prefer to not have couples with children aren’t racist.

I too am confused how targeting may be illegal under a law that forbids discrimination and discriminating content of ads - I am not familiar with the law. Lack of knowledge/understanding doesn’t make me “racist”.

Some other comments in this inflammatory thread helped me get the point, but your attacks on everybody as racists-by-defaul are deeply bigoted and insulting.

Not by default. After posting a comment supportive of denying the possibility of buying a house based on race and then making up rationalizations for why it's okay. Do you really believe in all of the hundreds of comments from various commentors that not one person here could actually really really in fact be racist?

Thinking about it, people who disagree with me by thinking that it is okay to deny housing based on race is by definition racist, no? The fact is clearly spelled out in law.

I'm not even saying someone disagrees with me. Where do you see that? I stated that there is casual racism in this thread.

I understand there is confusion in the law regarding targeting specifically. But stand back and take a look at the bigger picture of what the technology we create could allow. Like other real self proclaimed proud racists who would only use the service without understanding how it works.

It's not that it's targeting. It's not allowing those your not targeting to be part of the open market.

If you are something, someone calling it out is not an attack or bigotry. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Most people are stating that the responsibility lies within the landlords and not Facebook. There is no disagreement the landlords are being racist.

I don't see it as fair. I am not American so I am not familiar with the law. The other comment that replied to me explained why it's also illegal, without accusing anyone of racism.

I still don't believe that merely providing the option to create potentially discriminatory ads is a problem for Facebook, since the same options have perfectly valid usage. It should be the landlord's responsibility to use them correctly.

Why not disable them when it's invalid usage then?

Who did I accuse of racism? I stated people in the thread are being casually racist but didn't name any names.

Haven't we been learning as developers or operators that it's better to put processes and systems in place to prevent human error opposed to relying on human judgement alone? Why the slack with this issue?

How would you detect invalid usage? For example, targeting different text or pictures at different segments should be okay even for housing ads, as long as you don't exclude any segment.

Would you also require natural language processing to detect illegal text?

But there is selective use of advertising to target specific markets, which is an issue about which the Code of Federal Regulations, section 109.25 (https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_7781.PDF) is completely clear:

> § 109.25 Selective use of advertising media or content.

> The selective use of advertising media or content when particular combinations thereof are used exclusively with respect to various housing developments or sites can lead to discriminatory results and may indicate a violation of the Fair Housing Act. For example, the use of English language media alone or the exclusive use of media catering to the majority population in an area, when, in such area, there are also available non-English language or other minority media, may have discriminatory impact. Similarly, the selective use of human models in advertisements may have discriminatory impact. The following are examples of the selective use of advertisements which may be discriminatory:

> (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.

> (b) Selective use of equal opportunity slogan or logo. When placing advertisements, such selective use may involve placing the equal housing opportunity slogan or logo in advertising reaching some geographic areas, but not others, or with respect to some properties but not others.

> (c) Selective use of human models when conducting an advertising campaign. Selective advertising may involve an advertising campaign using human models primarily in media that cater to one racial or national origin segment of the population without a complementary advertising campaign that is directed at other groups. Another example may involve use of racially mixed models by a developer to advertise one development and not others. Similar care must be exercised in advertising in publications or other media directed at one particular sex, or at persons without children. Such selective advertising may involve the use of human models of members of only one sex, or of adults only, in displays, photographs or drawings to indicate preferences for one sex or the other, or for adults to the exclusion of children.

Targeted advertising was already a thing when these regulations were written decades ago; internet advertising is just a difference in scale and cost.

I haven't expressed an opinion either way - I'm just quoting what the linked article says.

dennisgorelik is correct, and you are wrong, as to a specific scenario which I would still consider to be a "housing transaction". It is 100% legal to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or any other characteristic at all when choosing a roommate (a special form of renting out your property). It is 100% illegal to place advertisements indicating that you will reject roommates based on race, sex, or other protected characteristic. So in that case, the law is very specifically about the contents of the advertisement, not about the behavior of discriminating against certain renters.

So are you saying it's not the spirit and letter of the Fair Housing Act to forbid discrimination? Or are you saying that HUD is not arguing that Facebook enables illegal discrimination on their platform?

Well, since housing discrimination is fully legal under some circumstances, I would indeed say that it is neither the spirit nor the letter of the Fair Housing Act to forbid discrimination. What is the alternative view?

I'll take a stab. You have a rental house where you want to rent out to senior citizens (for whatever reason). You put your ad in the local AARP magazine. If a young couple stumble upon the ad in the magazine, they can read the ad and apply for your rental.

However, what FB is doing is...that young couple reads the magazine and can't see the ad, but a senior citizen can.

IANAL...and for what it's worth there's a similar lawsuit for age discrimination for job hiring. Post ads only for certain age target.

> young couple ... can't see the ad, but a senior citizen can

Yes. Which is a good thing, because it saves time both to renters and landlords.

It also does not offend anyone, because there is no public age discrimination wording in the ad.

The most important part for our discussion here: there is no public promotion of age superiority in these ads. Therefore this Fair_Housing_Act does NOT apply.

> Which is a good thing, because it saves time both to renters and landlords.

When it comes to protected classes, it's not 'saving time' because a landlord acting legally is equally likely to rent to either group.

Because it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of having kids?

https://www.thebalance.com/fair-housing-act-violation-179889...