But nothing is stopping a black person from seeing the ad.
In FB's case, it's like posting an ad at a med school (any, med school, regardless of demographics) and say...you can only view this add if you're white.
When I was in college, lots of recruiters advertise and sponsor with the Society of Black Engineers...of Society of Women Engineers. Nothing stopped me from going to those meetings, and I did attend some. Their meetings were advertised to everyone. You weren't prevented from going to the meeting and listening to the recruiters.
Was I offended...yes and no, but more on the no side because I had the same opportunity as everyone else at school. I'll tell when I was offended. I went to a career fair one semester I saw Microsoft booth that advertised scholarships for minorities (or maybe internships? I don't know, I hope not because that woulda been illegal, in hindsight!).
There was a young Indian woman staffing the booth and I asked if I could apply. She said no...looking for blacks and hispanics. I'm Asian...so was she. Microsoft shoulda sent a black/hispanic engineer to send their message across better, too.
Let’s just say when they walk the neighborhood and I open the door, they are flummoxed when they don’t feel comfortable using their usually spiel...
If you take out an advertisement in a Catholic newspaper, you're focusing on Catholics. But non-Catholics may still read your advertisement if they come upon your newspaper. There is no method in traditional physical media to specifically exclude any demographic; there are only ways to emphasize one demographic over another. This makes digital advertising with demographic-based exclusion (rather than demographic-based inclusion) incomparable to a newspaper.
That difference may seem hollow but it is a difference of category, rather than degree. More important than this point is the observation that these kinds of debates quickly devolve into litigating the appropriateness of imperfect analogies rather than the original issue itself.
