Facebook deal with Washington ends ad filtering for ethnicity

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that Facebook has signed an agreement that will prevent advertisers promoting housing, credit, employment, insurance or businesses open to the public from excluding individuals from seeing their ads based on that person's race, creed, color, national origin, veteran or military status, sexual orientation or disability status. The agreement concludes a 20-month investigation conducted by the state's attorney general's office. While the de al makes these changes legally binding in the state of Washington, Facebook already implemented them broadly back in April.

"In response to the feedback we've received, we've removed thousands of categories from exclusion targeting," Facebook said in an April announcement. "We focused mainly on topics that relate to potentially sensitive personal attributes, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion." It also began requiring advertisers that offer housing, employment and credit to state that they are complying with its anti-discrimination policy as well as anti-discrimination laws.

This issue came to light in 2016 when ProPublica reported that it was able to buy housing ads that excluded African American, Asian American and Hispanic individuals from viewing them, a practice that the Congressional Black Caucus pointed out to Facebook was a "direct violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968." The social media giant later said it would disable settings that allow advertisers promoting housing, employment and credit to exclude racial and ethnic groups.

But last November, ProPublica found that it could still buy rental housing ads that discriminated against ethnic and religious groups. Facebook then said that it would temporarily disable the feature until it could "better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately." Since the initial ProPublica report, the Washington attorney general's office has continued to investigate the discriminatory ad feature and it successfully created 20 ads that excluded one or more ethnic minorities from seeing promotions of nightclubs, restaurants, lending, insurance, employment and apartment rentals.

While Facebook has agreed to change the feature, it maintains that its platform has complied with all laws. It signed an assurance of discontinuance that makes the agreement permanent and legally binding in the state of Washington and has agreed to pay the attorney general's office $90,000 in costs and fees.

In March, the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a lawsuit against Facebook over the advertising practice.

"We appreciate Attorney General Ferguson's attention to this important matter and are pleased to have reached an agreement with his office," Will Castleberry, who leads Facebook's state and local policy efforts, told Engadget in a statement. "We've worked closely with them to address the issues they've raised. Discriminatory advertising has no place on our platform, and we'll continue to improve our ad products so they're relevant, effective and safe for everyone."

Source: Washington Attorney General (1), (2)



via Engadget RSS Feed https://ift.tt/2NHAUDm
RSS Feed

If New feed item from http://www.engadget.com/rss-full.xml, then send me

IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Evernote cuts staff as user growth stalls

Image
Note-taking app Evernote has fallen on hard times of late, culminating in its latest spate of job cuts impacting 15 percent of its workforce (54 employees). CEO Chris O' Neil -- an ex-Googler who took the reins in 2015 -- announced the firings at an all-hands meeting earlier today, reports TechCrunch . In a message on the Evernote blog , O' Neill admitted he'd set "incredibly aggressive goals" for the company in 2018. He continued: "Going forward, we are streamlining certain functions, like sales, so we can continue to speed up and scale others, like product development and engineering." The layoffs follow an exec exodus just weeks ago and the company's recent brand refresh (complete with a refined logo and wordmark). But critics are more concerned about its product, especially the free tier, which they claim lacks the perks to...
Read more

The best air conditioner

Image
By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here . After six summers of researching, testing, and recommending window air conditioners, we've learned that quiet and affordable ACs make most people the happiest—and we think the LG LW8016ER will fit the bill in most rooms. This 8,000 Btu unit cools as efficiently and effectively as any model with an equal Btu rating, and runs at a lower volume and deeper pitch than others at this price. Little extra features like a fresh-air vent, two-axis fan blades, and a removable drain plug help set it apart, too. The LG LW8016ER is a top choice for an office or den, and some people will find it quiet enough for a bedroom, too. If our main pic...
Read more

We won't see a 'universal' vape oil cartridge anytime soon

Image
Pre-loaded cartridges of cannabis concentrate are currently among the most popular means of consumption, and for good reason. They're discreet to use and easy to handle, a far cry from the dark days of 2016 when we had to dribble hash oil or load wax into narrow-mouthed vape pens by hand. But, frustratingly, an ever increasing number of oil cartridge manufacturers employ one-off design standards so that their products won't work with those of their competitors, thereby locking customers into proprietary ecosystems. We've already seen this with nicotine vaporizers -- which has a seen a massive rise in "pod systems" in the last few years, each outfitted with a unique canister and battery built to be incompatible with those of their competition. Is it too late for the burgeoning cannabis industry to set a universal standard for their product designs? ...
Read more