APARTMENT ADVOCATE
NATIONAL APARTMENT ASSOCIATION /
NATIONAL MULTIFAMILY HOUSING COUNCIL
Apartment Companies Targeted in
Facebook Advertising Cases
O
n September 18, Housing Rights
Initiative (HRI) and a class of
potential renters fi led a lawsuit
against seven national or regional
property management fi rms, alleging age
discrimination in advertising in violation of
local fair housing laws in the Washington,
D.C. metro area. This case is the fi rst fair
housing complaint against rental housing
owners and operators, challenging their
advertising practices on Facebook. The
plaintiff s are seeking the following damages
from the defendants:
• A commitment to implement non-
discrimination policies throughout all of their
digital advertising;
• Educating and training their staff on these
policies;
• Monitoring their own compliance; and
• Compensating older residents who were
denied information about renting apartments.
In light of these recent developments,
NAA reminds its members to review their
company advertising or marketing plans for
all digital platforms. Facebook’s advertising
platform allows businesses to choose their
target audiences by selecting preferences
from pre-populated lists of user interests
and demographics. This feature may
prevent paid advertisements from reaching
audiences outside of those parameters.
Prior to this case, Facebook was the
primary target of scrutiny. In March,
Facebook agreed to make sweeping
changes to its platform after being accused
of enabling discrimination in housing,
employment and lending advertising, as
part of an agreement to settle a civil rights
claim brought by the National Fair Housing
Alliance, Communications Workers of
America, several regional fair housing
organizations and individual consumers
and job seekers. However, these changes
to Facebook’s platform only address
compliance concerns with federal laws.
While HRI’s allegations are based on
age protections in state or local fair housing
laws (age is not a protected class under the
Fair Housing Act (FHA)), previous claims
against Facebook itself focused on alleged
discrimination under the FHA. Of concern,
Facebook’s pre-populated lists allowed
advertisers to exclude audiences from their
target list on the basis of interest categories
that are proxies for federally protected
classes (race, color, religion, national origin,
sex, familial status and disability), such
as: “Interest in Disabled Parking Permit,”
interests in “Telemundo,” “English as a
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50 | TRENDS JANUARY 2020
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