It's not a stretch to say that if we are using Instagram. But why would we? What is the actual utility of the service? Of all the services I do not use, this is the service for which I can see no use.

Despite the excess consumption Instagram-loving millennials are used to seeing in places like California, “richer” states can have some of the highest rates of poverty. Beyond the psychological effects of social media that coerce vain people like me to buy more things than I need and jeopardize my own finances, one question I have is: does our use of social media worsen socioeconomic inequality and strengthen institutional racism? I believe that the answer is a resounding yes.

Is this a matter of belief, or one of study? The introduction to this draft now says "I'm going to tell you my feeling about whether a useless service I use has bad consequences for people other than me."

This is a potentially valuable discussion of a subject tangentially-related to the supposed subject of the draft. Regulatory changes designed to capture more behavior by lenders that is already illegal but that has changed technological form are useful. Here they are cast in speculative terms, about what might happen. But none of this bears on the ostensible subject of the draft, which is whether presently-existing social media increase economic inequality.

This draft too boxes itself out of its own responsibilities, ending up with a conclusion decrying its own habit of "broad statements devoid of specifics." And indeed, the specifics that are lacking concern a peripheral issue (how to control already illegal racial discrimination in lending) that has replaced the original subject, whether social media increase economic inequality, about which—with the exception of a single legislative staff report Googled up out of legislative context—there are no specifics or analysis at all.

Taken together, the two successive drafts show where the greatest source of improvement in your writing lies: careful outlining of a focused question resulting from systematic research. You can write well what needs to be written. It's the editorial function of focusing relentlessly on a topic and reporting the story that goes awry.

Both drafts take a point of departure they cannot sustain. This draft proposed a clear subject, which the earlier one did not, but then abandoned it for a subpoint as to which Google provided some news stories and one legislative report. Reducing racial biases in lending and housing access has been an objective of at least one political party's policy machinery for half a century. There is a great deal written and a large body of research. Intersecting with it tangentially, only to wind up without specifics in an area dominated by them, suggests the editorial failure. Your inner editor should be saying about every word in the outline (whose existence is purely theoretical so far as this draft itself shows), "how does this advance my argument, giving the reader more material and more clarity?" Anything in the outline that can't be reported on the basis of sources you have weighed and consider trustworthy, or which doesn't advance the illustration of your subject, should be replaced. When the outline is solid the draft should be written around it. Once you have internalized that discipline, all your legal writing will benefit substantially.

I don’t think it is a stretch to say that our exposure to the lives of the rich and famous on Instagram impacts the way we act as consumers and impacts the attitudes we have about ourselves and others. Despite the excess consumption Instagram-loving millennials are used to seeing in places like California, “richer” states can have some of the highest rates of poverty. Beyond the psychological effects of social media that coerce vain people like me to buy more things than I need and jeopardize my own finances, one question I have is: does our use of social media worsen socioeconomic inequality and strengthen institutional racism? I believe that the answer is a resounding yes.

The present draft takes too long to set up the problem, leaving itself one paragraph for the rather significant question of what to do about it. Morality, it then says, is "part of the solution," though in the highly material context of the preceding analysis that comes both as a surprise and a disappointment, like recommending Christianity as the cure for poverty.

Making the next draft stronger seems to me easy precisely because this is a fine start. You can compress the statement of the problem, keeping the useful set of sources on which you relied. You should be able to use at least half the next draft to explain what forms of social and legal policy would help.

How Social Media Exacerbates Income Inequality

-- By AmayGupta - 11 Oct 2019

Growing up in Los Angeles, I have met my fair share of people who, when asked what career they wish to pursue, respond with “influencer.” The barrage of images of Mercedes-Benz G-wagons, Saint Laurent sweatshirts, and celebrity culture that permeates Instagram can easily make us feel like we have to keep up with the Joneses. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that our exposure to the lives of the rich and famous on Instagram impacts the way we act as consumers and impacts the attitudes we have about ourselves and others. After all, I’ve witnessed my friends that make minimum wage as actors in LA drop $700 on Gucci Ace Sneakers to get into clubs so they can scroll through Instagram at the club instead of at home. Yet, according to the US Census Bureau, California has one of the highest rates of poverty. LA’s emphasis on conspicuous consumption makes it seem that those who have it all are hard workers, whereas those who wear the same clothes for over a year are lazy because they are poor. But beyond the psychological effects of social media that coerce vain people like me to buy more things than I need and jeopardize my own finances, one question I have is: do internet advertisers (referencing a majority of millennials and Gen-Zers) worsen socioeconomic inequality by either targeting poorer individuals? I believe that the answer is a resounding yes.

How Our Data Can Lead to Worse Outcomes for Marginalized Groups

Because those that are disadvantaged are subject to more data collection and surveillance than those with higher incomes, they are more vulnerable to negative outcomes resulting from data-driven algorithmic decisions. Not only are lower income internet users more likely to use social media, they are also less likely to use privacy settings on social media websites, such as setting the browser to turn off cookies and limiting privacy settings to limit viewers of posts. This may be the case because lower income individuals tend to be younger in age, and Generation Z and millennials prefer “curated” social media feeds that rely on their data. Moreover, lower income individuals tend to be less educated and more time constrained, thus leading to confusion about privacy settings. Nevertheless, it is no secret that a number of data broker products rely upon a user’s socioeconomic status. According to a US Senate Report, data mining companies that identify poorer individuals from social media behavior have the discretion to sell information to companies that specialize in suspicious financial products including payday loans and debt relief services. One reason is that regulations aimed at protecting consumers such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act don’t have strong provisions protecting users from predictive targeting.

In addition, it will become more difficult to determine if one is being discriminated against in loan applications. Moving towards models that estimate creditworthiness based on internet activity poses legal challenges when it comes to fighting discrimination cases. Credit-scoring tools that use thousands of data points collected without consumer knowledge may provide “objective” scores but obscure discriminatory and subjective lending policies. An article from the Yale Journal of Science and Technology discusses how ZestFinance? , a prominent player in the alternative credit-scoring industry, takes into account how quickly a loan applicant scrolls through the online terms & conditions to help determine how responsible an individual is. In addition, spending habits in the context of a borrower’s geographic location would also be used to indicate conventional spending. Based on current laws, proving violations under the ECOA, which protects against discrimination in credit transactions, requires plaintiffs to demonstrate disparate treatment by showing either that the lender had a discriminatory intent or motive or the decisions had a disproportionately adverse impact on minorities. Because new credit-scoring tools used for housing integrate thousands of data points, these technologies make it incredibly difficult for plaintiffs to make prima facie cases of disparate impact.

In job recruiting, where a variety of companies across all industries use algorithmic sites like Taleo, to evaluate potential applicants, I now worry that these sites also take data such as what we wear, our social behaviors, and who we are friends with to portray us as poor candidates for high income jobs despite our academic achievements, extracurricular involvement, and other markers of success. In higher education, some universities are already using how many friends and photos applicants have on their portals to help determine whether or not to offer them admission. The adage about not judging a book by its cover may be ingrained in the admissions staff, but the algorithms used to “predict” which students will enroll and stay enrolled has no emotion.

Essentially, there are no guarantees that algorithms that utilize our data will not reproduce existing patterns of discrimination or reflect biases that are prevalent in society. What bothers me even more is that low-income consumers may never even know that they were subject to this type of insidious discrimination nor will most of them have the legal resources to pursue a cause of action. Current trends towards arbitration certainly don’t help, and because damages for these violations tend to be low, our generation of lawyers has work to do beyond pushing for laws that inform customers that their data is being surveilled.

Remedies – So Where Do We Begin?

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