The term “redlining” used to signify when financial institutions would legally keep their best housing stock and lending products out of reach from members of certain groups – usually Black people.
Despite the fact that it’s now illegal, it seems the practice has gone digital – and here’s why that’s really scary.
Civil rights advocates caught businesses utilizing algorithms and Facebook Ads tools such as “Lookalike Audiences” to selectively target their products, services, and even JOB listings to the exclusion of other groups of users!
How can you seize opportunities that have intentionally been hidden from you? You can’t, and that’s a huge problem.
Activists tried multiple times to sue Facebook – on the grounds that, for example, Black people were often not shown the potentially prosperous advertisements in question. We deserve equal exposure to all opportunities for financial gain!
Even as these troubling lawsuits continue to be deliberated, the issue continues.
Facebook maintains its ad approval process has since been engineered to to prevent such discrimination, but that doesn’t change this important fact – they were shutting out millions of Black people who deserve to have all their wealth-building options made abundantly clear, even and especially in our increasingly digital world. Fix it ASAP!