Re:HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook
by chickenfries on Sunday August 19, 2018 @12:27AM
(#17792598)
> 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.
You say that like there is a clear, deterministic way to audit how Facebook ads are being targeted? I do not think you understand how ad trafficking on Facebook works.
How would the FHA determine that an ad was only being served to white people? Say you see and ad being served and you want to check if it is also being served to a black facebook user. You create a burner account. But now your Facebook feed isn't showing that ad anymore. Is it because of targeting, or is it because Facebook has other ad inventory that they want to show you? What if the inventory of the ad has been exhausted? I could be wrong, but it seems literally impossible to audit Facebook ads without access to Facebook's internals.
You say that like there is a clear, deterministic way to audit how Facebook ads are being targeted? I do not think you understand how ad trafficking on Facebook works.
How would the FHA determine that an ad was only being served to white people? Say you see and ad being served and you want to check if it is also being served to a black facebook user. You create a burner account. But now your Facebook feed isn't showing that ad anymore. Is it because of targeting, or is it because Facebook has other ad inventory that they want to show you? What if the inventory of the ad has been exhausted? I could be wrong, but it seems literally impossible to audit Facebook ads without access to Facebook's internals.