HUD Complaint Says Facebook Discriminated Against Users With Advertising

After two years of on-and-off investigating, Facebook will have to account for its behavior.

Advocates have struggled for years to get HUD to hold Facebook accountable for its discriminatory advertising practices.Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/Newscom via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Friday, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it had filed a housing discrimination complaint against Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act with its advertising platform. 

Attention was first brought to the potential harm of Facebook’s advertising tools, which allow advertisers to exclude certain users from seeing their posts, in a 2016 ProPublica investigative report. Despite repeated claims by the company that it had resolved the issues, the HUD complaint states that as of July 24, 2018, Facebook was still facilitating discrimination in housing-related ads based on “race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, and zip code.” For instance, advertisers can select to make sure their ads are not shown to users who Facebook categorizes as interested in “the Bible” or “mobility scooters,” the complaint claims. 

The initial investigation, launched by HUD following the ProPublica report, was halted in November 2017. The agency canceled planned negotiations with the company to resolve the complaint, citing an “agency-wide freeze” on investigations. But advocates persisted with the issue, and the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a suit against Facebook in March. 

Carson relaunched the investigation in April and claimed it had initially been dropped because HUD wanted to “have the chance to really study” the suits being brought against the company by various advocacy groups and state attorneys general. Carson has proved a strong advocate for weakening the agency’s Fair Housing laws.

“The Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination including those who might limit or deny housing options with a click of a mouse,” Anna MarĂ­a FarĂ­as, HUD’s assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity said in a statement to the press. “When Facebook uses the vast amount of personal data it collects to help advertisers to discriminate, it’s the same as slamming the door in someone’s face.”

The complaint will be followed by a formal investigation, where Facebook will have the opportunity to respond to allegations. If HUD determines that there is “reasonable cause” that the Fair Housing Act was violated, HUD could seek voluntary action from the company to resolve the complaint or send it to the Department of Justice for settlement. 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate