A class action suit accusing social media giant Facebook of
The case, originally filed in 2019, argued the tech company's in-house advertising platform allowed real estate brokers and landlords to exclude certain buyers or renters from ever seeing their ads. Protected classes of consumers, including single mothers and disabled individuals, were allegedly impacted.
The class, which is estimated to have over 50 members, is represented by Rosemarie Vargas, Jazmine Spencer, Kisha Skipper, Deillo Richards and Jenny Lin.
Plaintiffs allege that Facebook's ad platform "allowed and/or facilitated omission of certain Facebook users based on their real or perceived personal characteristics, by purposefully and intentionally creating, developing, and/or using the "Exclude People" feature."
Litigation was originally dismissed by the Northern District of California in 2021 based on the class's "failure to identify a concrete injury." Specifically, the court zeroed in on the notion that specific examples were not provided regarding what ads users could not see.
However, the recent ruling in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals leaned on examples provided by representatives of the class, to argue that the case deserved a second chance.
The court specifically noted Vargas' claim that there was a discrepancy in the housing ads she saw, being a disabled female of Hispanic descent and a single parent, compared to her caucasian friend who used the same criteria to search for said ads.
"The district court faulted the complaint for not identifying specific ads that Plaintiff Vargas did not see. But Plaintiffs' very claim is that Facebook's practices concealed information from housing-seekers in protected classes," the courts decision read. "And nothing in the case law requires that a plaintiff identify specific ads that she could not see when she alleges that an ad-delivery algorithm restricted her access to housing ads in the first place."
Michael Mantese, partner at Mantese Honigman, PC and the legal counsel for the class, applauded the decision of the court.
"We are pleased with the ruling and agree that Facebook is not a mere bulletin board posting the discriminatory housing ads of others," he said in a written response. "In fact, it created the discriminatory platform and then delivered the discriminatory selections."
A spokeswoman for Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, said the company is "reviewing the decision."
She also noted that in January the company launched a new technology called "the variance reduction system, which helps advance the equitable distribution of ads on Meta Technologies."
"We launched this technology in the US for housing ads and will expand it over the year to employment and credit ads," the spokeswoman said in a written statement.
The opinion of the appeals court also noted that the district court relied on the fact that only paid ads used Facebook's targeting methods, and plaintiffs do not specify whether the ads that Vargas' white friend saw were paid ads.
Despite this, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion reads that "if Plaintiff Vargas cannot prove that she was denied access to one or more paid ads, then her claims will fail on the merits—but they do not fail for lack of standing." The court also said they are "unpersuaded" that Facebook's advertising tools are neutral.
A similar lawsuit accusing the media company of relying on skewed algorithms to deliver housing ads to consumers was filed against Facebook in 2019 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and later got picked up by the Department of Justice.
