Fair housing groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday saying that Facebook continues to discriminate against certain groups, including women, disabled veterans and single mothers, in the way that it allows advertisers to target the audience for their ads. The suit comes as the social network is scrambling to deal with an international crisis over the misuse of data belonging to 50 million of its users.

Facebook, an advertising behemoth with more than two billion users a month, provides advertisers with the ability to customize their messages and target who sees them by selecting from preset lists of demographics, likes, behaviors and interests, while excluding others.

Pet food companies, for example, could send their ads specifically to people who had indicated an interest in dogs, while excluding cat and bird fanciers.

When it comes to housing and employment ads, Facebook, in response to criticism over the last 17 months, has repeatedly promised that it would crack down on advertisers who use those same tools to show housing or employment ads to whites only.