who turned to Facebook to find an insurance provider
Well there’s your first problem right there.
Facebook accused of not showing insurance ads to women and older people in violation of civil rights laws
Submitted 1 year ago by cyu@sh.itjust.works to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23889747/facebook-biased-ad-algorithm-aclu-court
Comments
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Odelay42@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Regulations exist to protect people from corporations.
I know Facebook sucks, you know Facebook sucks, but Facebook spends billions of dollars to convince hundreds of millions of people they don’t suck, and it’s extremely effective.
I get the impulse to say, “you should know better than you go to Facebook for important info”, but the fact is, a lot of people do go to Facebook for important info, so it’s critical that Facebook is held accountable to their de facto position as an objective source of information.
HaggierRapscallier@feddit.nl 1 year ago
A Controversial take: Maybe Facebook has become problematic?
Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
How are the woman and older people in violation of civil rights laws?
Asuracharya@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lol
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Speaking of FB ads I’ve noticed a rise in trash ads that show big breasted woman for things that have nothing to do with boobs. I remember during the home refinancing boom I was bombarded with ads from mortgage companies slapping a photo of a chesty woman on them.
Llewellyn@lemm.ee 1 year ago
What do you mean?! Everything is related to big breasted women!
clgoh@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
At least everything in the Milky Way.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
touché
spikederailed@lemmy.world 1 year ago
same. I use facebook container extension on firefox, and do not have the app on my phone. I have noticed this as well, it doesnt matter how man pages i block and mark “i dont want to see this kind of contect” it just keeps coming.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Facebook can be sued over allegations that its advertising algorithm is discriminatory, a California state court of appeals ruled last week.
The decision stems from a class action lawsuit filed against Facebook in 2020, which accused the company of not showing insurance ads to women and older people in violation of civil rights laws.
In a September 21st ruling, the appeals court reversed a previous decision that said Section 230 (which protects online platforms from legal liability if users post illegal content) shields Facebook from accountability.
The appeals court concluded that the case “adequately” alleges that Facebook “knew insurance advertisers intentionally targeted its ads based on users’ age and gender” in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
It also found significant similarities between Facebook’s ad platform and Roommates.com, a service that exceeded the protections of Section 230 by including drop-down menus with options that allowed for discrimination.
Facebook’s ad algorithm has faced scrutiny for years now, with a federal lawsuit filed in 2018 accusing the company of enabling housing discrimination and subsequent studies backing up these claims.
The original article contains 274 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 35%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh my god! Please violate my rights by not showing me ads! What a boring dystopia…
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 1 year ago
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.
Cheers@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
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.
Rodeo@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
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?
PostmodernPythia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
prole@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
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.
Cheers@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’ve never wanted to zuck someone off more.
Abuse my right to view ads daddy zuck.