Tech vs. Laws
Recently, there have been lawsuits filed against housing companies, as well as Facebook, about housing discrimination against older people. These housing companies allegedly disabled older users from seeing available housing in their Facebook ads.
This goes against the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which prohibits discrimination towards one’s race, religion, nationality, disability, familial status, and age. Facebook has been proactive about this by creating a special category of ads when it comes to scenarios like these which can be found under the business manager.
In my opinion, this is an example of how technology is outpacing laws and regulations. Technology is growing at a rapid and unprecedented speed that it is hard for lawmakers to keep up. Playing devil’s advocate, I do not believe that these housing companies had a malicious intent in omitting older users from seeing their ad. It could be the fact they saw it was not viable or optimal for them to target this age group. At the same time, shelter is a basic necessity and the information on housing should be readily available for anyone who can afford.
This raises the question; what other laws do big tech companies need to be conscious of? And what do lawmakers need to do to adapt to these rapid changes? It is tough to see how this plays out but in my opinion, I believe lawmakers need to understand the technology better. They are more pessimistic than optimistic when dealing with these issues. It just seems they are more afraid of what is going to happen and being reactive about things instead of learning and being proactive on how to give technology room to grow while still being properly regulated. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
