Facebook illegally lets housing ads exclude ethnic minorities
Occurred: October 2016
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Facebook allows advertisers in the US to exclude black, Hispanic and other 'ethnic affinities' from seeing ads on its platform, an investigation has revealed.
According to non-profit news organisation ProPublica, Facebook devised a category called 'Ethnic Affinities' that enabled advertisers to target and exclude certain groups of users when placing ads for a new apartment or a house for sale.
Affinity targeting is based on interests users have declared or Facebook pages they have liked.
Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by US federal laws governing housing, employment and financial services.
The discovery resulted in multiple parties suing Facebook - including the US Department of Housing (HUD) - a suit Facebok lost.
➕ July 2021. The Markup discovered a wide range of proxies for racial categories being used by advertisers on the platform, including the phrases 'African-American culture,' 'Asian Culture,' and 'Latino culture.'
System 🤖
Documents 📃
Operator: Meta/Facebook
Developer: Meta/Facebook
Country: USA
Sector: Govt - housing
Purpose: Target advertising
Technology: Advertising management system
Issue: Bias/discrimination
Legal, regulatory 👩🏼⚖️
Research, advocacy 🧮
Brookings (2021). Solving the Problem of Racially Discriminatory Advertising on Facebook
Spinks C. N. (2020). Contemporary Housing Discrimination: Facebook, Targeted Advertising, and the Fair Housing Act
National Fair Housing Alliance (2019). Civil Rights Advocates Settle Lawsuit with Facebook: Transforms Facebook’s Platform Impacting Millions of Users
ACLU (2019). Facebook Agrees to Sweeping Reforms to Curb Discriminatory Ad Targeting Practices
Ali M., et al (2019). Discrimination through Optimization: How Facebook’s Ad Delivery Can Lead to Biased Outcomes (pdf)
Speicher T. et al (2018). Potential for Discrimination in Online Targeted Advertising (pdf)
Investigations, assessments, audits 🧐
The Markup (2021). Facebook Got Rid of Racial Ad Categories. Or Did It?
The Markup (2020). Does Facebook Still Sell Discriminatory Ads?
ProPublica (2019). Facebook Won’t Let Employers, Landlords or Lenders Discriminate in Ads Anymore
ProPublica (2017). Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude Users by Race
ProPublica (2016). HUD Has ‘Serious Concerns’ About Facebook’s Ethnic Targeting
ProPublica (2016). Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race
ProPublica (2016). Facebook ad
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: August 2023