IECL Lunchtime Seminar with Fanna Gamal – What's in a Name? Equality Law, Language, and Technology

The IECL Lunchtime Seminar Series offers our Academic Visitors an opportunity to share their research, exchange ideas, and connect with colleagues on both substantive and methodological aspects of their work. 

Each seminar usually lasts 30–45 minutes, with 20–30 minutes for the presentation followed by 10–15 minutes for Q&A. A light sandwich lunch will be provided.

Dr Fanna Gamal
What's in a Name? Equality Law, Language, and Technology

Abstract: This Article examines a landmark algorithmic antidiscrimination settlement between the United States government and Meta Platforms, Inc. concerning the company’s targeted advertisement and delivery methods. At the heart of the dispute is Meta’s practice of algorithmically constructing groups for the purpose of targeted advertisement. An important but undertheorized aspect of the settlement suggests that if racial language is used to describe these groups, they will be exposed to antidiscrimination laws that might hinder their survival.

The Article argues that through its conflation of racial language with the underlying racial substance that the language represents, the government’s settlement with Meta undermines its own antidiscrimination aims. The settlement appears to address the causes of algorithmic racial discrimination, but it ultimately constitutes a regulatory concession to the company in this very important application of civil rights law to machine learning algorithms.

Drawing on a constructivist theory of race, the Article argues that racial discrimination lies at the heart of Meta’s business model, since classifying and essentializing humans for the purpose of hierarchical ordering is a racial act that animates the company’s primary revenue generating practice of targeted advertising.