Ben Carson’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched an investigation of Facebook, claiming that the social media giant has engaged in discrimination in its housing advertisement practices, numerous outlets have reported.
The company had previously been under investigation for its fair-housing practices but the probe had been frozen for five months, Gizmodo reported.
The surprise announcement was made by Jereon Brown, HUD’s general deputy secretary for public affairs, during congressional testimony Wednesday.
“Secretary Carson has directed HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to re-open its investigation into Facebook’s advertising practices,” Brown told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“Since our initial investigation, we have learned more about these practices that warrant a deeper level of scrutiny. At this point, we are resuming an investigation and have made no findings in this matter.”
The issue at hand again deals with the information Facebook keeps on its users. As early as 2016, ProPublica reported that the social media giant allowed housing advertisers to exclude users based on a category known as “Ethnic Affinities” — ostensibly excluding potential tenants based on race.
“Facebook provided realtors, for example, with ad-targeting options that allowing them to “narrow” their ads to excluded, among others, black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans,” Gizmodo reported. – READ MORE
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