'Disturbing' — Civil rights groups take on Facebook over ad discrimination

When ProPublica revealed that Facebook allowed advertisers to target or exclude users by their "ethnic affinity," the social network at first doubled down on defending the practice.

"We are committed to providing people with quality ad experiences, which includes helping people see messages that are both relevant to the cultural communities they are interested in and have content that reflects or represents their communities," Facebook said at the time.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other advocacy groups were already questioning the legality of the advertising offering long before the public became aware. Conversations surrounding the use of the feature began last spring, advocates said. Facebook was sued over the feature last week.

"There's always been a market for discrimination in this country," Coty Montag, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told Mashable. "We were concerned that ethnic affinity marketing could violate civil rights acts."

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Facebook last week announced that it would build tools to disable ethnic affinity marketing for ads related to housing, employment and credit. Advocates think those changes are just a first step.

"Facebook was pretty light on details. There are a lot of questions about how they will identify these ads," Rachel Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Project, told Mashable. "Ethnic affinity targeting is particularly disturbing, but race-based targeting is not the only form prohibited by civil rights laws. There's gender, religion, national origin."

"Facebook was pretty light on details. There are a lot of questions about how they will identify these ads."

Facebook's ethnic affinity marketing tool allows advertisers to target or exclude users whose profiles suggest an "affinity" toward a certain ethnic group — which doesn't explicitly confirm that they belong to that ethnic group themselves. The ACLU doesn't buy that distinction.

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"Advertising to exclude people with an African-American affinity from housing is evidence of intentional discrimination, even if every person in that cluster is not actually black," Goodman said.

Advertising to or excluding certain groups is illegal in ads related to housing, credit and employment under the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Title VII.

SEE ALSO:Facebook has discriminated against you, and it's not going to stop

It's equally illegal to exclude a minority group from legitimate opportunities or to target a minority group with advertisements for payday lending, for example. The practices are known as redlining and reverse redlining. Facebook's ethnic affinity category allows advertisers to address or exclude users with an African-American, Hispanic-American or Asian-American "affinity."

This kind of marketing has some uses that could be approved under civil rights law. Facebook emphasized the importance of advertisers reaching cultural groups, like Hispanic Americans during the World Cup. The ACLU has more persuasive reasons that apply to the areas protected under federal law — a business that wants to make sure its job postings reach minority candidates, for example.

But this kind of advertising is problematic beyond just ethnicity. Excluding religious groups — which many people identify their membership in explicitly on Facebook — is illegal under federal law. Even targeting or excluding "Moms" from an ad could be illegal under federal protections that apply to a person's "family status."

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Facebook hasn't yet offered any information about how exactly it will build the tools that will implement these changes. The tech company said it consulted the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the National Fair Housing Alliance and the New York attorney general in addition to the ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

"We have already started the process of making these changes, and expect to have these changes in place early next year. With the scale of our advertising platform, it takes time to build the tools needed to implement these changes and we are working on sorting the details in the coming days," a Facebook spokesperson said.

This is only one problem facing Facebook this week. The social network has come under harsh criticism for its failure to act against news hoaxes that may have influenced voters' opinions in the U.S. presidential election. Facebook admitted Wednesday morning that it had made mistakes in measuring video metrics for advertisers.

"To avoid these problems in the future, I urge Facebook and other technology companies to address the lack of diversity in the ranks of their leadership and staff..."

Targeted advertising is the main concern at the moment for civil rights groups, though. The ACLU has also been in conversations with Facebook about First Amendment issues following the social network's questionable approach to to taking down content.

"I want to commend Facebook for listening to the Congressional Black Caucus and other concerned organizations and removing advertising functions that could facilitate racial discrimination in housing and other areas," Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) said in a statement about Facebook's changes to its ethnic affinity settings. "To avoid these problems in the future, I urge Facebook and other technology companies to address the lack of diversity in the ranks of their leadership and staff by recruiting and retaining people of color and women."

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