Facebook accused of not showing insurance ads to women and older people in violation of civil rights laws

cyu@sh.itjust.worksbanned from community to Technology@lemmy.world – 277 points –
Facebook can be sued over biased ad algorithm, says court
theverge.com
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Oh my god! Please violate my rights by not showing me ads! What a boring dystopia...

Id imagine the issue isn't "not showing some people ads", they probably just got different ads instead if these are the regularly placed ads being talked about.

The article mentions something about this being started by someone who went to Facebook looking for an insurance provider though, so this sounds more like if Amazon didn't show certain product listings to people of some specific category for one reason or another- those listings are technically advertising a product, but they're something one actually does want to see, when shopping for something relevant to the listing at least. If, say, some company wanted to offer a product at a discount, but only wanted to offer that discount to a certain category of person for some reason, it'd be pretty scummy of the online retailer to comply and only show other people that product at the more expensive price, or not at all.

If, say, some company wanted to offer a product at a discount, but only wanted to offer that discount to a certain category of person for some reason

That's literally how the entire insurance industry works in the first place. So I wonder, is there a special exception that insurance companies get that Facebook does not?

Might it depend on the specifics? Im unsure what the relevant laws are here, but it's easy to imagine that offering a special discount to, say, non-smokers, would be considered far more acceptable than offering a discount only to men

We know women are heavy shoppers, thus they have more competitive ad space.

We know people like to scam elderly, thus they have more competitive ad space.

Sounds like big insurance might be complaining that they're worse at SEO than the Nigerian prince.

Would you feel differently if they weren’t showing real estate ads for homes in largely white communities to PoC? Because that’s the same principle, given that that’s why the law was made. I’m not upset that we’re enforcing nondiscrimination law; we don’t do it enough.

Just consider how much privilege people like you and I have, that we're able to call it "boring". For many people, it's far from boring.

I've never wanted to zuck someone off more.

Abuse my right to view ads daddy zuck.