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Discriminatory Housing Advertisements On-Line: Lessons From Craigslist, Rigel C. Oliveri
Discriminatory Housing Advertisements On-Line: Lessons From Craigslist, Rigel C. Oliveri
Faculty Publications
The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to publish discriminatory housing advertisements. This has long been applied to newspapers, which have effectively screened all discriminatory housing ads from sight. However, in 1996 Congress created a loophole when it immunized website operators from liability for the content posted to their sites by third parties. Without publisher liability, websites have no incentive to screen out discriminatory housing ads. The result is that such ads are proliferating in cyberspace.While this situation is problematic from a fair housing standpoint, it presents a valuable opportunity. For the first time in a generation discriminatory housing advertisements …