I’m not. The article is about “Facebooks job ads”, meaning jobs that were advertised through Facebooks ad service and showed up like other ads.
I mentioned nothing about job postings.
Which sums up the problem nicely. Ads can legally be highly gendered while jobs cannot be. Just because a company puts a job posting on an advertising platform doesn’t remove the legal requirements around hiring requirements.
15 Likes
Whatever you want to call them, help-wanted classified ads or postings of any sort in any medium are subject to EEOC laws, and any outlet or platform selling those ads is culpable if they aid and abet an employer posting an ad the violates those laws. They differ in this way from other sorts of ads and it was incumbent on Facebook to recognise this fact and design for it accordingly. Instead, as is typical, these privilege-blind techbros decided to cut corners and “move fast”, this time breaking a thing called the law.
13 Likes
Exactly!
These companies were discriminating in targeting to “men 18-50”.
Unless… they happened to run complementary campaign for women and older people. ( which is doubtful )
They would have done better to target by interest - “tools and home improvement”, rather than gender, and they wouldn’t be in hot water - and that would probably be a lot smarter spend looking for window installers.
3 Likes
I have done a moderate amount of hiring for company’s I have worked for. The problem is always too many applicants, not enough qualified people. Filtering out people on unrelated dimensions just reduces the number of qualified people sitting across from me for an interview.
If you mean targeting interests specific to the job position you are filling (C++ job targeted at people interested in C++) then yes. But I could see some misusing this (targeting C++ job at people seeking help for their ED or whatever that tends to bias a long gender lines).
6 Likes
Right - I was never arguing in favor of gender discrimination in hiring.
All I was saying was.
- It’s not surprising facebook ads can target gender. ( Duh - demographic targeting is their bread and butter )
- and there may be valid reasons for using gender targeting in job advertising. ( but you’d need opposite gender complement campaigns )
In the specifics of the legal case - I thing the advertisers were discriminatory, and are probably going to pay for it.
No-one argued otherwise. What was surprising (well, not really given the company’s well-known shoddy and privilege-blind practises) was that FB didn’t turn off demographic targetting related to gender, race, age, disability, etc. for their help-wanted ads while leaving them on for others.
In limited cases there may be, but either way someone advertising for a job can’t legally specify in an explicit way the gender of the applicant, which is effectively what the FB targetting system allowed those buying help-wanted ads to do.
Facebook will, too, in a civil judgment and/or fines levied by the federal and state governments.
10 Likes
Part of the job of delivering a platform for businesses is to provide them with the tools to comply with legal requirements. If you don’t help them stay within the law or worse enable them to actively break the law then you shouldn’t be surprised when things go south.
FB is not lacking in people resources (product design, developers, or lawyers) to figure out that job “ads” have additional requirements from other types of ads. This is just one more example of FB willingness to twist or break both ethical and legal rules for profit. There is no excuse.
12 Likes
What if you are advertising for a job as a performer in the Puppetry of the Penis show?
They still haven’t figured out that they have to comply with the Fair Housing Act, so EEOC compliance probably isn’t even on their radar.
12 Likes
Not much code goes out the door of a large company without a through legal review. But it’s up to the company to decide if they use that legal information to do the right thing or to get away with as much crap as possible. My personal experience has actually been very positive in this regard with executives doing the right thing but it sure seems like FB has a different culture than I am used to. While their motives can be debated I can’t believe they are not aware of FHA or EELOC.
7 Likes
They take the profits from operating at scale. They can do the work required to operate at scale legally.
5 Likes
Actually if you’re hiring nurses Guns and Ammo is probably a really good place to advertise. A lot of subscribers may have military experience, which is still one of the largest pools of trained nurses, particularly if you’re looking for nurses with trauma experience for an ER.
10 Likes
Hardly.
Now you’re paying for two ads instead of one based on a ridiculous assumption.
7 Likes
There is an exception.
“except that such a notice or advertisement may indicate a preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination based on religion, sex, or national origin when religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide
occupational qualification for employment.”
What do you think the odds are Facebook checked that their ads met that standard before publication?
4 Likes
I would guess that no human being checked them at all, honestly.
Thank you for the info! That actually sounds far more reasonable than I expected.
2 Likes
oh and saying:
is like saying “they have half the calories so you can eat twice as much”
more precise targeting thins who gets it , and when you are paying in CPM ( cost per 1000) that means less $$$
1 Like
Please keep comments civil. You are welcome to share your opinions or experience. Do so without slights against your fellow posters, please.
8 Likes
Even so, the claim of a bona fide exception must be explicitly contained in the ad itself. Targetting filters should either play no part or require an acknowledgement so the platform can remain in compliance with the law.
6 Likes
You do not seem to know how federal law works. Job ads are not like other forms of advertising, and should not be discriminatory.
14 Likes
