Even on the Internet, "a power that can not escape from poverty when living in a poor area" is working strongly

ByPabak Sarkar

How long will my life be troubled if I am born in a poor neighborhood?Internet news site that explained in detailVoxHowever, it is revealed that there is a mechanism on the Internet that people living in poor areas can not escape from poverty.

How the internet keeps poor people in poor neighborhoods - Vox
http://www.vox.com/2016/12/12/13867692/poor-neighborhoods-targeted-ads-internet-cartoon

In October 2016, it is a non-profit and independent press organizationProPublicaJournalists, real estate on FacebookPurchase adDid. The reason ProPublica purchased the advertisement seems to be because Facebook wanted to know the advertiser "how to discriminate based on race". When ProPublica used Facebook's advertising tool, there was the option to exclude certain races such as African American, Asian American, Hispanic from the target of advertisement.


This Facebook advertising tool says that you should not carefully select targets for real estate ads due to race, skin color, religion, sex, physical disabilityFair Housing Sales ActIt is a racial discrimination by the side that advertises clearly. And that discrimination was frightening that you could do it by clicking the checkbox on Facebook.

In fact, however, the fact that racial discrimination is done by real estate advertising itself is not so rare.

In the 1940s, white house developers were planning construction of residential areas near Detroit, and even refused the loan from the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) just because it was "close to the area where black people live" There is a discrimination culture rooted in the real estate industry.


The real estate industry that had been explicit racial discrimination in the past, but its nuances will differ slightly in modern times. For example, if there is a town with an affordable residential area, there are priorities such as "Working in town" and "People who lived in town" when deciding on residents. At first glance it seems that racial elements are not included in the priorities, but it seems that 95% of people actually living in that town are often Caucasian.


Why does such racism occur? There are evils due to highly developed Internet services there.

For example, if you "like" something on Facebook or searching something on Google, the IT company learns what kind of hobby tastes the user has. The more the user uses a specific service, the more the web service is personalized for each user. For example, if it is Google, the search result that the user seems to click more when the user searches for a keyword is displayed at the higher level, Or display advertisements that users are likely to be interested on the page. In addition, because people have different needs and restrictions with race, class, etc., how to use the Internet will differ.

Indeed, discrimination is born without noticing even in various advertisements such as recruitment and recruitment requirements of the university, etc. not only the Internet, personalized is personalized. However, Michael Karl, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, said that "If discrimination occurs naturally due to personalization, it is very difficult to recognize whether you are discriminated against or not "I tell you.

For example, to create a condominium to recruit residentsPearl JamSuppose you create an ad targeted at your fans. Even if the advertisement side does not intend, if the fans of pearl jam are only white people, this advertisement inevitably becomes advertisement excluding non white people.


Knowing the existence of discrimination as people living in such an inequitable society, assuming that the developed Internet service is creating discrimination without knowing it.

In 2015 Mr. Michael and colleague at Carnegie Mellon University Mr. Amitt Dutt investigated "How the advertising platform discriminates users". About the result, Mr. Dutt says, "It can not be said that there is a very good understanding and transparency in how advertising targets can be decided."


Mr. Michael and Mr. Dutt's team decided to test on Google's advertising system which displays personalized advertisements for each user. The purpose of the survey conducted by the two research teams was to unravel the question "Is Google advertising as" suitable for each user "really suitable?" Therefore, in the survey, we used a computer program to create 500 virtual Internet users and to investigate how advertisements displayed by sex or hobby preference change.


In the experiment, let virtual Internet users search for job offers on Google, for example, and then visit two news sites. Then, it seems that the advertisement related to the recruitment was displayed in the Google advertisement placed on the site. However, the contents of the displayed advertisement seemed to be very different between men and women, and the job advertisement displayed on the screen of male users was obviously better treated than the one displayed on the side of the woman is.


Since there is a column to check gender when creating a user account of Google, certainly discrimination by gender may be done easily. However, in Google's account there is no field for entering race, but information on race may have already been obtained by user's actions on the Internet and information obtained from SNS etc. And if Google's system is determined to be Caucasian, ads of condominiums where nature and white people only live are displayed on the browser, advertisements for condominiums will be displayed if it is judged to be other races It is the current problem of the Internet that it does not know existence without existence.


So, how do you oppose discrimination done in Internet advertisements? The hint may be to know how old people fought against discriminative advertisements.

In the 1980s, all the staff responsible for real estate advertisements in the New York Times were Caucasians.


Under the Fair Housing Sales Act, colored races insisted that real estate ads were too discriminatory, but sueing individual advertisers did not lead to a fundamental solution to the problem.

However, four black experts filed a lawsuit against the New York Times in 1989 and complained that "the newspaper company should be responsible for the discriminatory advertisement posted on the newspaper to be issued" It was. The New York Times argued that "ads are protected under paragraph 1 of the amendment of the American Constitution," but the federal court ruled that "newspaper companies are responsible."


This case led to the New York Times investigating whether racist advertisements will be posted or not, leading to victory for those seeking fair home sales.


Well then, the circumstances will differ slightly as far as we can bring a lawsuit against a company with infrastructure to deliver Internet advertisements. In advertisements on the Internet, there are different obstacles from advertisements such as newspapers, and in particular two cases are drawing attention.

One such thing happened in 2006, and the classified community site'sCraigslistThe above is the case where a real estate advertisement entered as "white people only" was posted. In this case Craigslist was sued, but the court ruled that 'Craigslist is not responsible' because it is the advertiser that is discriminatingly advertising. As a result, it seems that it became difficult to encourage sites that post advertisements, as if pressure was placed on newspaper companies, in order to correct discriminatory advertisements more equally.


However, it is clear from past judgment contents that it is impossible to discriminate users on the website side.

In 2008, Roommates.com on the real estate information site had a function to ask users whether they are particular about the race of roommates. The court claims that this function violates the communication quality law, and requests improvement on the site. However, Roommates.com also has a text box that allows you to enter characters freely, just like Craigslist, and it was judged that the user himself / herself writing "I would like a white roommate" is not a problem in itself It was.


Mr. Michael says "In today's discrimination is in an era when discrimination becomes more harmful," many experts say that contemporary discrimination problems are developing more difficult. If you think about changing discriminative advertisements on the modern internet more equally, you need to understand why discrimination occurs and think about how to solve it.

"I'm very interested in how big companies like Google and Facebook face the discrimination on the Internet because their way of dealing can be a model for other Internet providers," Mr. Joe Rich, who promotes fair housing sales and regional development projects, speaks.


Even though I understand the target advertisement algorithm, I do not know whether discrimination has occurred on the system of the advertising platform, or whether the advertiser intentionally discriminates. The way to distinguish whether the advertisement provider intentionally discriminates or not is to "confirm whether different options will be presented due to differences in ethnicity". As Michael and Mr. Dutt's research team did, by using programs to make accounts with differences in ethnicity seem to take the same actions, we can see how the displayed advertisements change and see how real estate agents and It is understood which discrimination is hiding in either algorithm.


In this way it was investigated whether real estate sites are actually racial discrimination by Christian Sandvik of the University of Michigan and Mr. Currie Kalahario of the University of Illinois. However, at the timing when two researchers actually tried to conduct a survey, it seems that it was noticed that conducting this investigation is a crime. Because it is necessary to create a fake profile to investigate whether racial discrimination is done or not because it was a violation of the service agreement of the website established under the Computer Fraud Action Law. As a result, it seems that the survey using the program has become obscene.


Therefore, on behalf of researchers investigating whether real estate advertisements are discriminating, the American Association for Freedom of Human Rights is appealing the revision of the Computer Misconduct Act.


It is very important to check whether the external existence is functioning normally, and it is necessary to revise the computer fraud prevention law to do it with advertisements on the Internet that researchers We are thinking. Also, it is important that companies check their systems themselves and understand exactly how it works.