Friday, September 21, 2018


Must not promote jobs to males only -- even if males are the most likely to be interested

THE social media giant has been accused of being the architect of discrimination and giving “new life” to sexism in a string of targeted ads.

This time the social media giant has been slammed for targeting certain job ads exclusively at men by encouraging advertisers in certain male-dominated industries like law enforcement, roof tiling and truck driving to exclude women from their ads targeting on the site.

Social rights campaigners in the United States have claimed Facebook is “shutting out” women from hearing about job opportunities and accused it of giving “new life” to discrimination.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint with the US labour equality watchdog alleging that Facebook “consciously encouraged” employers to exclude women from their digital recruitment efforts.

“In creating and carrying out these targeting mechanisms, Facebook has created and profited from a powerful tool for discrimination against female and other non-male job applicants,” the complaint said.

“Facebook has long known that employers and employment agencies were using its platform to discriminate on the basis of gender, and (has) encouraged that behaviour, rather than eliminating it.”

The complaint was filed on behalf of three female job seekers and the Communications Workers of America Union.

SOURCE 

3 comments:

Stan B said...

Obviously, the problem is that women don't demonstrate enough interest in these jobs. Facebook will have to develop an algorithm that targets the job adverts based on personality profiles derived from user interests - but when that excludes 90% of their female users from seeing the advertised jobs, it will still be a problem. This is the state of discrimination law today. Even scientifically based advertisement targeting with no human bias whatsoever is likely to draw the ire of those who claim "inherent bias." Inherent bias being actionable....

Anonymous said...

Political Correctness run amok once again.

Anonymous said...

This kind of complaint could be used against every single advertising-based media available. Everyone targets their advertising. TV shows carry ads targeted to the kind of viewer expected for that particular type of show. Magazines seek and accept ads based on their readership demographics. Targeted advertising is how the media world operates and survives.