Facebook can face legal action over a complaint that accuses the platform of being discriminatory in its advertising algorithm, a US court has ruled. The ruling revives the class action lawsuit filed in 2020 against Facebook’s advertising practices.
The decision, issued by a California appeals court last week, allowed the lawsuit to proceed on the basis of “sufficient evidence”. The case revolves around a 48-year-old woman who could not locate insurance ads on Facebook because of her age and gender, the case alleged. She accused Facebook of deploying discriminatory ad targeting tools and enabling discrimination by advertisers, claiming potential violations of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The lawsuit had previously been impeded by a ruling that prevented Facebook from liability in connection with the allegations. It cited Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which protects interactive websites from being held responsible for the content posted by third parties. The appeals court reversed the decision, however, backing the allegations that Facebook was aware that the insurance advertisers were intentionally targeting ads based on users’ age and gender on the Meta-owned platform.
The ruling has been hailed as a “watershed decision for online discrimination” by legal experts, who expressed satisfaction that it would “open possible pathways for accountability against social media platforms”. Meta has long been facing criticism and scrutiny for its algorithmic biases, which have spanned a large volume of research and a series of legal action against the company.
In June this year, four complaints were filed against Meta based on research by the nonprofit, Global Witness, which shed light on Facebook’s discriminatory job advertisements. Consequently, a large number of users were missing out on potential employment opportunities because of their gender and race. Facebook could be discriminating against users and violating equality and data protection laws in European markets such as France and the Netherlands, the study said.
Earlier in 2019, Meta settled five different lawsuits alleging discrimination in ads related to housing and employment across its social media platforms. The company, then known as Facebook Inc., paid around $5 million to take the matter out of court. The cases were filed between November 2016 and September 2018, carrying allegations from labour and civil rights bodies, workers and other users. The complaints similarly accused Meta of deploying a discriminatory ad mechanism that excluded some users from viewing them on the basis of their race, age and gender.
