Facebook and US sign deal to end discriminatory housing ads

NEW YORK — Facebook will change its algorithms to prevent discriminatory housing advertising and its parent company will subject itself to court oversight to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams called the lawsuit “groundbreaking.” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke called it “historic.” Ashley Settle, a Facebook spokesperson, said in an email that the company was “building a novel machine learning method without our ads system that will change the way housing ads are delivered to people residing in the U.S. across different demographic groups.” She said the company would extend its new method for ads related to employment and credit in the U.S. “We are excited to pioneer this effort,” Settle added in an email. Williams said Facebook’s technology has in the past violated the Fair Housing Act online “just as when companies engage in discriminatory advertising using more traditional advertising methods.” Clarke said “companies like Meta have a responsibility to ensure their algorithmic tools are not used in a discriminatory manner.” According to terms of the settlement, Facebook will stop using an advertising tool for housing ads that the government said employed a discriminatory algorithm to locate users who “look like” other users based on characteristics protected by the Fair Housing Act, the Justice Department said. Facebook also will develop a new system over the next half-year to address racial and other disparities caused by its use of personalization algorithms in its delivery system for housing ads, it said. The Justice Department said Tuesday that the 2019 settlement reduced the potentially discriminatory targeting options available to advertisers but failed to resolve other problems, including Facebook’s discriminatory delivery of housing ads through machine-learning algorithms.