https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/28/facebook-charged-with-housing-discrimination-over-ad-targeting/

After investigating a complaint it filed against Facebook last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday charged the Silicon Valley company with violating the Fair Housing Act, saying it enabled unlawful discrimination by limiting who could see housing-related ads online.

Three years ago, the world’s largest social network was found to have been allowing advertisers to exclude targets by “ethnic affinities,” when ProPublica reported that it was able to buy ads that could not be seen by Facebook users with African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic ethnic affinities in the United States.