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algorithms
'A Betrayal': Colorado's Democratic Governor Vetoes Bill Targeting Algorithmic Rent-Setting
The veto, said one critic, "sends the devastating message that corporate landlords can keep using secret price-fixing algorithms to take extra rent from people who have the least."
May 30, 2025
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, used his veto pen on Thursday to block legislation aimed at banning rent-setting algorithms that corporate landlords have used to drive up housing costs across the country.
The bill, known as H.B. 1004, would have prohibited algorithmic software "sold or distributed with the intent that it will be used by two or more landlords in the same market or a related market to set or recommend the amount of rent, level of occupancy, or other commercial term associated with the occupancy of a residential premises."
A report issued late last year by the Biden White House estimated that algorithmic rent-setting cost U.S. renters a combined $3.8 billion in 2023. According to the Biden administration's analysis, Denver tenants have been paying an average of $1,600 more on rent each year because of rent-setting algorithms. The approximate monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city is $1,600.
Pat Garofalo, director of state and local policy at the American Economic Liberties Project, called Polis' veto "a betrayal" that makes "his priorities clear."
"Governor Polis had a simple choice: stand with working Coloradans or side with corporate landlords using secretive algorithms to allegedly price-fix rents," said Garofalo. "The governor talks a big game about affordability and abundance, but when given the chance to take real action—at no cost to taxpayers—he protected profiteers and let families keep paying a 13th month of rent. It's a betrayal of the values he claims to champion, and Colorado renters won't soon forget it."
"Governor Polis vetoed the most meaningful legislation we had to lower costs for renters."
Sam Gilman, co-founder and president of the Denver-based Community Economic Defense Project, said that the governor's veto "sends the devastating message that corporate landlords can keep using secret price-fixing algorithms to take extra rent from people who have the least."
"At a time when costs keep rising for working people and Republicans in Washington are attacking the social safety net," Gilman added, "Governor Polis vetoed the most meaningful legislation we had to lower costs for renters."
In a letter explaining his veto, Polis voiced agreement with the bill's supporters that "collusion between landlords for purposes of artificially constraining rental supply and increasing costs on renters is wrong." But he warned the bill could have the unintended effect of banning software that helps "efficiently manage residential real estate."
The governor's reasoning did not assuage critics.
"It stood up to corporate power," Gilman said of the legislation. "It promised to bring apartments back online. And it took on economic abuse that steals $1,600 a year from renters."
State Rep. Steven Woodrow (D-2) said it is "unfortunate that someone who claims to care so deeply about saving people money has chosen the interests of large corporate landlords over those of hard-working Coloradans."
State and local legislative efforts to rein in algorithmic rent-setting have gained steam in recent years following an explosive ProPublica story in 2022 detailing RealPage's sale of "software that uses data analytics to suggest daily prices for open units."
"RealPage discourages bargaining with renters and has even recommended that landlords in some cases accept a lower occupancy rate in order to raise rents and make more money," the investigative outlet reported. "One of the algorithm's developers told ProPublica that leasing agents had 'too much empathy' compared to computer-generated pricing. Apartment managers can reject the software's suggestions, but as many as 90% are adopted, according to former RealPage employees."
The Denver Post reported Thursday that the vetoed bill "essentially targeted RealPage," which lobbied aggressively against a similar measure that died in the Colorado Legislature last year.
Polis also used his veto authority on Thursday to tank legislation that would have "limited how much ambulance services can charge for transporting patients and required health insurance companies to cover the cost, minus deductibles or copays," The Colorado Sun reported.
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Human Rights Experts: Meta's Trump-Friendly Policies Could Be 'Conduit' for 'Genocide'
"Rather than learning from its reckless contributions to mass violence in countries including Myanmar and Ethiopia, Meta is instead stripping away important protections that were aimed at preventing any recurrence of such harms."
Feb 17, 2025
An expert on technology and human rights and a survivor of the Rohingya genocide warned Monday that new policies adopted by social-media giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, could incite genocidal violence in the future.
On January 7, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to Meta policies that were widely interpreted as a bid to gain approval from the incoming Trump administration. These included the replacement of fact-checkers with a community notes system, relocating content moderators from California to Texas, and lifting bans on the criticisms of certain groups such as immigrants, women, and transgender individuals.
Zuckerberg touted the changes as an anti-censorship campaign, saying the company was trying to "get back to our roots around free expression" and arguing that "the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward, once again, prioritizing speech."
"With Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs lining up (literally, in the case of the recent inauguration) behind the new administration's wide-ranging attacks on human rights, Meta shareholders need to step up and hold the company's leadership to account to prevent Meta from yet again becoming a conduit for mass violence, or even genocide."
However, Pat de Brún, head of Big Tech Accountability at Amnesty International, and Maung Sawyeddollah, the founder and executive director of the Rohingya Students' Network who himself fled violence from the Myanmar military in 2017, said the change in policies would make it even more likely that Facebook or Instagram posts would inflame violence against marginalized communities around the world. While Zuckerberg's announcement initially only applied to the U.S., the company has suggested it could make similar changes internationally as well.
"Rather than learning from its reckless contributions to mass violence in countries including Myanmar and Ethiopia, Meta is instead stripping away important protections that were aimed at preventing any recurrence of such harms," de Brún and Sawyeddollah wrote on the Amnesty International website. "In enacting these changes, Meta has effectively declared an open season for hate and harassment targeting its most vulnerable and at-risk people, including trans people, migrants, and refugees."
Past research has shown that Facebook's algorithms can promote hateful, false, or racially provocative content in an attempt to increase the amount of time users spend on the site and therefore the company's profits, sometimes with devastating consequences.
One example is what happened to the Rohingya, as de Brún and Sawyeddollah explained:
We have seen the horrific consequences of Meta's recklessness before. In 2017, Myanmar security forces undertook a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. A United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Commission concluded in 2018 that Myanmar had committed genocide. In the years leading up to these attacks, Facebook had become an echo chamber of virulent anti-Rohingya hatred. The mass dissemination of dehumanizing anti-Rohingya content poured fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and helped to create an enabling environment for mass violence. In the absence of appropriate safeguards, Facebook's toxic algorithms intensified a storm of hatred against the Rohingya, which contributed to these atrocities. According to a report by the United Nations, Facebook was instrumental in the radicalization of local populations and the incitement of violence against the Rohingya.
In late January, Sawyeddollah—with the support of Amnesty International, the Open Society Justice Initiative, and Victim Advocates International—filed a whistleblower's complaint against Meta with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning Facebook's role in the Rohingya genocide.
The complaint argued that the company, then registered as Facebook, had known or at least "recklessly disregarded" since 2013 that its algorithm was encouraging the spread of anti-Rohingya hate speech and that its content moderation policies were not sufficient to address the issue. Despite this, it misrepresented the situation to both the SEC and investors in multiple filings.
Now, Sawyeddollah and de Brún are concerned that history could repeat itself unless shareholders and lawmakers take action to counter the power of the tech companies.
"With Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs lining up (literally, in the case of the recent inauguration) behind the new administration's wide-ranging attacks on human rights, Meta shareholders need to step up and hold the company's leadership to account to prevent Meta from yet again becoming a conduit for mass violence, or even genocide," they wrote. "Similarly, legislators and lawmakers in the U.S. must ensure that the SEC retains its neutrality, properly investigate legitimate complaints—such as the one we recently filed, and ensure those who abuse human rights face justice."
The human rights experts aren't the only ones concerned about Meta's new direction. Even employees are sounding the alarm.
"I really think this is a precursor for genocide," one former employee told Platformer when the new policies were first announced. "We've seen it happen. Real people's lives are actually going to be endangered. I'm just devastated."
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Biden DOJ Sues Major Landlords Over Algorithmic Price Fixing
"If you mess with the price of rent, be prepared to meet the DOJ on the other side of that scheme!" wrote the American Economic Liberties Project.
Jan 07, 2025
The U.S.Justice Department on Tuesday announced that it has added six landlords as defendants in an antitrust lawsuit that the agency initially filed against the real estate software company RealPage, which the DOJ accused of engaging in a price fixing scheme that allows reduced competition between landlords so they can increase rents.
At the center of the case is RealPage's "algorithmic pricing software," which generates rent price recommendations using software based on their and their rivals' "competitively sensitive information," which they submit to RealPage, according to an August statement from the Department of Justice regarding the initial complaint.
The new complaint alleges that the six companies—Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC; Blackstone's LivCor LLC; Camden Property Trust; Cushman & Wakefield Inc and Pinnacle Property Management Services LLC; Willow Bridge Property Company LLC; and Cortland Management LLC—"participated in an unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing, harming millions of American renters," according to a Tuesday statement from the Department of Justice.
The landlords collectively operate more than 1.3 million units in 43 states and the District of Columbia, according to the agency.
The Department of Justice alleges that in addition to using RealPages's "anticompetitive pricing algorithms," the companies coordinated in a number of ways, including "communicating with competitors' senior managers about rents, occupancy, and other competitively sensitive topics" and participating in "user groups" hosted by RealPage, during which landlords would discuss, for example, how to modify the software's pricing methodology and the companies' own pricing strategies.
"While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today's lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high," said Doha Mekki, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, in the Tuesday statement.
Two states, Illinois and Massachusetts, have also joined the suit as plaintiffs.
The American Economic Liberties Project, a group that urges government to confront corporate concentration, touted the updates to the lawsuit, writing Tuesday, "If you mess with the price of rent, be prepared to meet the DOJ on the other side of that scheme!"
Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog Accountable.US, said in a Tuesday statement that "corporate landlords like Camden Property Trust, one of the landlord companies included in today's complaint, have reaped hundreds of millions in profits while using RealPage's algorithm, and that's just the tip of the iceberg."
According to the Tuesday release from the Department of Justice, pending a consent decree which must be approved by the court, the DOJ may resolve its claims against one of the landlords, Cortland, which would then cooperate with the Justice Department's investigation and litigation.
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