Facebook Inc. was accused Thursday of discriminatory housing practices by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The administrative charge said the social media company is violating the Fair Housing Act by “encouraging, enabling, and causing housing discrimination through the company's advertising platform.”

HUD General Counsel Paul Compton said in a statement: “Even as we confront new technologies, the fair housing laws enacted over half a century ago remain clear—discrimination in housing-related advertising is against the law. Just because a process to deliver advertising is opaque and complex doesn't mean that [it] exempts Facebook and others from our scrutiny and the law of the land.”

U.S. housing officials filed a fair-housing complaint against Facebook in 2018, and Thursday's action marked the filing of a formal charge. “Through its charge, HUD seeks to address unresolved fair housing issues regarding Facebook's advertising practices and to obtain appropriate relief for the harm Facebook caused and continues to cause,” the agency said Thursday.

An administrative law judge at HUD will hear the agency's charge unless either side asks to take the dispute to federal district court. The presiding administrative law judge has the power to award damages if there's a finding of discrimination, HUD said.

The agency's administrative action comes about a week after Facebook announced changes to its ad platform to resolve claims that advertisers for housing, employment and credit opportunities used discriminatory practices in targeting certain audiences.

“Our policies already prohibit advertisers from using our tools to discriminate. We've removed thousands of categories from targeting related to protected classes such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. But we can do better,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said March 19.

Among the changes Facebook announced: Advertisers for housing, employment and credit ads can no longer target opportunities by age, gender or zip code. And advertisers in these arenas “will have a much smaller set of targeting categories to use in their campaigns overall.”

Sandberg said at the time: “Today's changes mark an important step in our broader effort to prevent discrimination and promote fairness and inclusion on Facebook. But our work is far from over.”

Read HUD's charge against Facebook below: