Facebook Inc. is being sued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing advertisers to place ads based on people’s race, religion or national origin.

The lawsuit states that Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act by preventing certain people from seeing certain ads while also employing its data-mining capabilities to ascertain who sees the “right” ads. That’s biased and thus unfair, the lawsuit said.

“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement Thursday. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”

Facebook’s ad practices have been scrutinized for some time now, culminating recently with a $5 million settlement paid to the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations. Back in 2016, a series of investigations led by ProPublica showed that the social media company was allowing advertisers to place ads based on a person’s “ethnic affinities.”

At the time, civil rights lawyer John Relman said that such behavior was “horrifying” and “massively illegal.” He told ProPublica, “This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.”

Back then, Facebook had nothing in place to prevent such discrimination from happening, and though the company cracked down on advertisers targeting certain ethnicities, further investigations proved it was still happening.

In the complaint HUD stated that advertisers can still use a map to see whom they want to exclude, while they can also choose either men or women or people who speak a certain language. Critics have said such discrimination isn’t much different from the redlining practices in the U.S.

“We’re surprised by HUD’s decision, as we’ve been working with them to address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination,” Facebook said in a statement, adding that talks had somewhat been hampered because federal officials had asked for too much data without “adequate safeguards.” The company said it will keep working with civil rights experts to address the issue.

According to reports, HUD is also investigating Twitter Inc. and Google LLC for possibly allowing similar discriminatory practices. “They want to make sure that other companies aren’t getting away with something that one company is investigated for,” a person familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

Image: Ian Muttoo/Flickr