[an_account]

It's on the person running the ad to not break laws or operate in discriminatory ways, not Facebook.

There are tons of metrics that correlate heavily with race, combinations of which that can be used in place of this metric. Facebook shouldn't be at fault when an advertiser abuses them.

If a landlord took online rental applications, the company providing the technology for the applications wouldn't be at fault if the landlord denied all applications from a certain ethnicity.

[jondubois]

I think that it's a really dangerous trend; now we have all these platforms which facilitate illegal activity but which offload all the legal responsibility onto their users.

You could say the same thing about Pirate Bay, Silk Road, Uber (for helping its drivers bypass local license requirements), AirBnb (for helping landlords bypass local tenancy laws).

All these companies help people break the law... The ones which help people break 'important' laws are prosecuted (E.g. Silk Road and Pirate Bay) - But the ones which help people break minor laws tend to be left alone mostly.

Our society is evolving in such a way that our laws are slowly degrading - Particularly the laws designed to protect the working classes. What all these companies are doing is effectively turning us all against each other for their own benefit.

[jessaustin]

Our society is evolving in such a way that our laws are slowly degrading...

This may be an inevitable response to the ongoing proliferation of unnecessary laws?

[jondubois]

Yes probably in some cases - But I think a lot of 'socialist' laws could also be a target.

For example, it will be interesting to see how AirBnb will affect house prices in countries which are currently deemed 'tenant-friendly' (as opposed to 'landlord-friendly') - Those countries have laws designed to make property investment unsavoury for landlords and this has kept house prices down so far, but with the flexibility of renting out through AirBnb, housing might become an attractive investment option in those countries.

[forgottenpass]

This may be an inevitable response to the ongoing proliferation of unnecessary laws?

It's wishful thinking to expect the degradation of a law be inversely correlated to is value to society (however you want to calculate that, "necessity" or otherwise).

[jessaustin]

We weren't really talking about individual laws. It is the institution of Law in general that has been degraded, and that is partly due to all the extra laws. Each new law makes someone's life better, or else it wouldn't have been lobbied into existence, but on average each new law makes life worse for the public as a whole. The public knows this at some level, so it's understandable that the average person now has less respect for the Law than the average person did in e.g. 1950.

[xkcd-sucks]

Maybe one could raise VC money at a ridiculous valuation to distribute cocaine using the airbnb/uber model...

[basch]

Dont forget Comcast, ATT, Verizon, Youtube etc

Any ISP or Hosting Company that lets you do something illegal should be punished.

[1024core]

You know, I'm sick and tired of all these "Web 2.0" companies shirking their responsibilities. Uber doesn't "offer rides", it's just a "marketplace". AirBnB doesn't offer short-term rentals, it's just a "marketplace".

Face it: Facebook offers the option to exclude people based on race. This is wrong. Period. Race is one of the protected categories, and you cannot discriminate (or give preferential treatment to) based just on race.

[xkcd-sucks]

Does this extend to all ad targeting in general? For example, targeted advertiseing for tampons, African hair products, Spanish language stuff etc.