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Many Job Ads on Facebook Illegally Exclude Women, ACLU Says (nbcnews.com) 244

Facebook's advertising platform is being used by prospective employers to discriminate against women, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. From a report: The American Civil Liberties Union, joined by a labor union and a law firm that specializes in representing employees, has filed a written charge against Facebook with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. The charge asks for an investigation of the social media company and an injunction against what it calls discriminatory practices at a company with a sizable influence over the U.S. labor market. It also claims Facebook's system violates anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The social network has faced sustained criticism for years that it fails to stop discriminatory ads of various kinds, from housing ads that exclude certain races to job ads targeted only at younger workers. In August, Facebook said it would remove 5,000 targeted advertising options from its platform in an effort to prevent discrimination.
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Many Job Ads on Facebook Illegally Exclude Women, ACLU Says

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  • This seems pretty nonsensical to me. The entire point of advertising is to reach those groups most likely to respond to your product. Life without discrimination isn't even really life.. you can't even acknowledge a difference between right and wrong, good or evil. It's like we're trying to unmake ourselves.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pjw2072 ( 139601 )
      That's true, but the EEOC's definition of discrimination pertains to certain protected classes. Is that just? I think this is where the discussion should begin.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        It seems fairly just on its face but say I have a product that is an oil for people with African phenotype hair. It would be crazy for me to be sued for targeting African Americans. What if I wanted sales people for my product? Shouldn't I be able to publish an ad that targets African Americans that will actually be able to successfully market it for me? A white chick with straight blonde hair probably isn't going to be my best salesperson.
        • by sunking2 ( 521698 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:45AM (#57334030)

          You seem to be comparing this to advertisers who specific target ads in say ebony, or on BET. However it's not quite the same thing.

          I think the housing example is the clearest example of where this is obviously wrong. There are strong laws against discrimination in housing and specifically not showing your ad to a segment of the population is clearly discriminatory.

          Targeting is fine, exclusion isn't.

        • It seems fairly just on its face but say I have a product that is an oil for people with African phenotype hair. It would be crazy for me to be sued for targeting African Americans. What if I wanted sales people for my product? Shouldn't I be able to publish an ad that targets African Americans that will actually be able to successfully market it for me? A white chick with straight blonde hair probably isn't going to be my best salesperson.

          I believe that certain allowances are made. It's ok to discriminate if that particular characteristic is paramount to the job. As an example, I grew up in Hawaii. The Polynesian Cultural Center can discriminate based on perceived race for performers (people don't fly thousands of miles and spend lots of money to see white blondes doing the Samoan slap dance, for example), but race cannot be a factor in hiring tour guides (but spoken languages can). I said perceived race because my sister (natural blonde) dy

          • Or like if you apply for a job as a surrogate mother but happen to be male?
            • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:00PM (#57335468)

              Hooters hires only female waitstaff, and requires them to be "slim and fit". They were sued, and won, since the appearance of their waitresses is critical to their business model. So the law makes reasonable exceptions.

              • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

                but omg it's fat shaming! Everyone is beautiful! etc ad nauseum. Social Justice: it's a slippery slope all the way down.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          When you say "market it for me", exactly what work are you expecting them to carry out? If it's modelling then okay, they need the right type of hair, and the law allows you to select people based on that genuine need. But if it's just counter sales or something then you have a harder time arguing that the blond won't be able to sell it, because that really depends on her sales skills and not her ability to use the product on herself.

          • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

            I'm willing to bet there's a correlation between the attractiveness of the sales staff and sales stats for almost any product bought in-person.

    • by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:16AM (#57333826) Homepage

      Job wanted ads are not the same as advertising for consumer products and services. A job is not a product - they are two different things treated in very different ways by the legal system.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:21AM (#57333862) Homepage

        Job ads and housing ads are treated exactly the same. That's why this issue has come up in the past on that very subject (housing).

        Civil Rights laws have rather loose "result based" standards that probably seem counter-intutitive to a lot of civil libertines.

        You can't even avoid advertising to people. What constitutes that sort of thing isn't intuitive to a layman.

        Even excluding convicted criminals can be a problem.

        • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:55AM (#57334136) Homepage Journal

          Job ads and housing ads are treated exactly the same. That's why this issue has come up in the past on that very subject (housing).

          Yes, they're treated the same, which is to say that Facebook intentionally created a tool that enables discrimination. There shouldn't even be discriminatory options presented when you create an advertisement for a job or a rental, but that's how Facebook authored the tool.

        • Actually yes, you can discriminate. Check out the hooters case.
          https://www.businessinsider.com/how-can-hooters-hire-only-women-2015-9
        • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

          Civil Rights laws have rather loose "result based" standards that probably seem counter-intutitive to a lot of civil libertines.

          That's one hell of a way to put it. There's nothing counter-intuitive about it at all. It's a retread of some of the most illiberal policies ever conceived.

      • Surprisingly, advertising and selling some consumer goods are in fact subject to nondiscrimination laws. That's not including financial products, for instance, which are clearly subject.

      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        Really, it seems very straightforward for Facebook to exclude all targeted options from adds for protected categories: job, housing, most financial products, etc. Veyr obvious, very easy, very sketchy that they haven't done it yet.

    • by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:21AM (#57333864) Homepage

      I can't believe some people are really going to defend something like a job posting site offering the ability to employers to say "I only want men to know about this job." That's not a complicated case for discrimination. Newspapers and job posting websites like monster didn't offer protected class attribute targeting and employers didn't find this so economically burdensome as to not to advertise in them so it's pretty stupid to charge that this is something that employers need to be able to do as the cost of making the job market significantly less transparent for everybody.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:28PM (#57335722)

        I can't believe some people are really going to defend something like a job posting site offering the ability to employers to say "I only want men to know about this job."

        Some people believe in freedom, including the freedom to choose how you target advertising that you are paying for. Other people believe it is a valid and reasonable function of the police power of the state to force people to spend their money against their wishes. Therein lies the dichotomy. Freedom or not freedom. Anti-freedom advocates know their position is morally inferior, which is why they expend a tremendous amount of energy exercising the mental gymnastics required to define "freedom" as requiring people to behave a certain way under penalty of imprisonment.

        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          You're setting out a false dichotomy there. The freedom loving sexist can choose to not spend their money on advertising.

          The state merely mandates that if they do spend their money on advertising, they need to obey the social contract inherent to operating within that jurisdiction.

          That's not forcing them to spend any money at all. It's not denying them freedom either. You're just being silly.

      • I can't believe some people are really going to defend something like a job posting site offering the ability to employers to say "I only want men to know about this job."

        If that is what they are doing then there is absolutely no argument at all. However, I suspect that they are doing something more nuanced and, rather than just selecting "men-only" they are selecting to display the ads to people with certain interests and then selecting interests that are biased towards men.

        This makes the situation a lot less clear. If the interest group targetted has an interest related to the job being advertized then this is reasonable discrimination regardless of the gender balance

        • This Wired article [wired.com] does a better job of explaining the specifics.

          One ad seeking a roofer, from a company called Enhanced Roofing and Remodeling, was targeted to men 23 to 50 in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to information from Facebook accompanying the ad. Another, from JK Moving, seeking drivers, targeted men age 21 to 55 who live or were recently in Maryland.

          In both cases, they very specifically targeted not just gender (men) but age (21-55, 23-50). Doesn't seem like much nuance around it.

      • Newspapers and job posting websites like monster didn't offer protected class attribute targeting and employers didn't find this so economically burdensome as to not to advertise in them...

        Wanna bet? The declining readership isn't what killed newspapers. The decline in advertising revenue is what killed them. And the reason for that was expense and ineffectiveness. Advertising is of dubious utility at the best of times. Newspaper advertising, with its lovely "egalitarian-ness" allowed your advertisement to reach millions of people you literally did not want to reach, and specifically, did not want to pay to reach. Reaching all of those extra totally useless eyeballs cost money. A LOT o

    • Strawman (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      you're equating discriminating between chocolate and vanilla ice cream lovers to gender discrimination. The world is just a tad more nuanced than that.

      If I can risk strawmaning myself for a bit here, I think the problem is we've been too far removed from the worst of discrimination for too long. We forget too easily that women didn't used to vote, could be beaten and even raped with impunity, couldn't own property or were themselves property. What's crazy is there's large swaths of the world where all t
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Interesting that they are complaining about gender discrimination now. Previously it was race and efforts to get Facebook to fix it didn't work out so well, as it's still going on. Historically white women have often been the first to benefit from greater equality so when there is a stubborn problem like this it makes sense to target gender first. Just a shame it has to happen at all.

      • If I can risk strawmaning myself for a bit here,

        Risk level - 100% ;)

        We forget too easily that women didn't used to vote, could be beaten and even raped with impunity, couldn't own property or were themselves property

        Large time gap between some of this ... not to mention unevenly true in different times and places.

        For example, one reason that pagan Rome hated Christians is that Christianity made women so uppity, considered them of equal worth, etc.

        What's crazy is there's large swaths of the world where all this is still true and we turn a blind eye to it.

        When "we" don't turn a blind eye to it, "progressives" call us "racists".

        There's also a sizable minority of regressives who want to turn back the clock. Some (Jordon Peterson comes to mind) have pretty large followings and speak in pretty reasonable terms...

        There is nobody in the US who advocates for women to be property, "raped with impunity", etc. Certainly not Jordon Peterson.

        Well, nobody except the hordes from those "large swaths of

      • Re:Strawman (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Scroatzilla ( 672804 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:52AM (#57334804) Homepage Journal

        >> Jordon Peterson comes to mind

        So what you're saying is that you have seen hit pieces on Jordan Peterson, have no idea what he says, and are now using him in your vague argument advocating for social justice while completely ignoring the agency of women to make their own life choices.

        • while completely ignoring the agency of women to make their own life choices.

          The whole point of the laws Facebook is (accused of) violating is that women cannot make their own choices if there are a bunch of secret jobs they cannot choose to apply for because Facebook hide the job listings from them.

      • We forget too easily that women didn't used to vote, could be beaten and even raped with impunity, couldn't own property or were themselves property. What's crazy is there's large swaths of the world where all this is still true and we turn a blind eye to it.

        Right. Those places definitely need some Freedom! brought to them. Nothing says Freedom! like tanks in the streets.

        It isn't "our" job to radically alter other people's cultures, especially because the only ways we know to do that which actually worked historically are brutally and indiscriminately violent. Those cultures will change from within, or not at all. Unless and until they acquire their own Susan B. Anthony's, there own Elizabeth Stanton's, there's nothing "we" can do. And there is no "we" her

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rickb928 ( 945187 )

      "The entire point of advertising is to reach those groups most likely to respond to your product."

      Employment ads often are intended to reach those candidates most qualified, primarily, and secondarily most likely to respond.

      Qualification cannot be, legally, determined by race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, and a few other categories I've forgotten.

      So you cannot legally restrict advertising based on these and other criteria. In fact, even location is a challenging criteria, as zip code or specific

      • So you cannot legally restrict advertising based on these and other criteria.

        Yes, but suppose you advertize to those with an interest in car maintenance (which purely for the sake of this argument let's assume is a male-dominated group)? The effect is that you would be targetting the ad to a predominantly male group but is this illegal gender discrimination?

        If you are doing this for a job working as a car mechanic this seems like a very reasonable thing to do. However, if your job is for an investment banker your motivation is likely to be illegal gender discrimination. This mak

        • If your criteria for determining the interest in 'car maintenance' includes any variables or factors that include sex (or gender), you've done it wrong.

          I'm pretty sure that, if you actually did mean to state that interest in car maintenance could reasonably be assumed to be more prevalent among men than women, while interest in investment banking would not be reasonably assumed to be different between men and women, your primary and legal error is that first, these interests are not exclusively of interest

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This seems pretty nonsensical to me. The entire point of advertising is to reach those groups most likely to respond to your product. Life without discrimination isn't even really life.. you can't even acknowledge a difference between right and wrong, good or evil. It's like we're trying to unmake ourselves.

      That is what happens when you allow the Legal Industrial Complex to convince every American that they're offended by every fucking thing, or should be.

      And of course they should sue someone because of it.

      This is exactly how we ended up here in the Land of the Perpetually Offended. The irony? We fight every day to retain Freedom of Speech, and yet we're working very quickly at the same time to utterly destroy it with this addiction to political correctness.

    • I think they may be overreaching to claim the targeting system itself is discriminatory (in a protected sense). As other's have said, if you're marketing a product only relevant to a specific group, it makes sense to target that group. No point marketting strong sunscreen to dark-skinned people, or feminine products to men.

      What *is* a problem is using the targeting system to exclude groups that your specific product (jobs and housing) are legally forbidden from discriminating against.

    • This seems pretty nonsensical to me. If you don't get it why do you feel compelled to comment about it?
      The entire point of advertising is to reach those groups most likely to respond to your product. Exclusion of a demographic of people is counter productive of trying to reach people who may respond to your product.
      Life without discrimination isn't even really life.. you can't even acknowledge a difference between right and wrong, good or evil. It's like we're trying to unmake ourselves. As cultured humans,

    • You're switching the definition of "discrimination" halfway through your post. That's a lie.

      And most advertising is discriminatory. But certain things (housing, jobs) are regulated because the goal isn't to "reach the (single person, not group) you want to sell to" It's to offer an opportunity. And, things like housing and jobs are considered to be important to be offered uniformly.

  • It's been a long time, maybe forever, since Craigslist accepted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H permitted ads for firearms and most any accessory.

    Craigslist has ended personals in the US, all done. Globally not so much yet, but it's inevitable.

    A variety of Craigslist categories have been limited or removed. Their current US list of prohibitions:

    weapons; firearms/guns and components; BB/pellet, stun, and spear guns; etc
    ammunition, clips, cartridges, reloading materials, gunpowder, fireworks, explosives
    offers, solicitation,

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      It's been a long time, maybe forever, since Craigslist permitted ads for firearms

      But my guns are all girls. What am I supposed to do if I want to find a new home for Bessie?

  • #metoo Blowback. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zorro ( 15797 )

    Guys never accuse their boss of looking at them wrong for profit and career advancement.

    • Re:#metoo Blowback. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:33AM (#57334616) Homepage Journal

      This claim that mere accusations of being looked at "wrong" are enough for sexual harassment complaints is bogus. There needs to be a documented pattern of behaviour or a single well documented overt incident like groping in public.

      Complaining about looks with no evidence will just get you on HR's shit list and passed over for promotion.

      • This claim that mere accusations of being looked at "wrong" are enough for sexual harassment complaints is bogus. There needs to be a documented pattern of behaviour

        How can you document a pattern of behaviour if you do not have a mechanism for complaining about the instances of said behaviour? In other words, it is the repeated sexual harassment complaints that create the documented pattern of behaviour, which will eventually result in action being taken on those complaints. The threshold for action depends on the litigation sensitivity of the organization.

        Complaining about looks with no evidence

        How does one document "a look"?

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          That was my point. Your perception of a look is never going to be enough for any kind of complaint.

          • That was my point. Your perception of a look is never going to be enough for any kind of complaint.

            My point was that you said "complaining ... without evidence". If the "look" is sufficiently suggestive or harassing in nature, then it does rise to the level of complaint, yet you think that "evidence" is required before someone can complain.

            Let's say you poke your head out of your cubicle and stare at your coworker's ass every time she walks by, or every time you talk to her about anything you stare at her boobs instead of looking her in the eye. Or maybe you become especially clumsy in her presence and

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              If it's a pattern of behaviour like that then the way to deal with it is witnesses. Point it out to another colleague, ask them to observe.

              My point was merely that this claim you will be destroyed with a sexual harassment claim merely for gazing in the direction of a women, as some people claim, is rubbish.

      • Repeated looks will already get you in trouble for sexual harassment. Try staring at a womans breasts in every conversation; HR will take a very dim view of the 'it's just looking' defense.
        And given how rapidly the definition is expanding, and is already basically defined by the 'survivor', can you really have much confidence that we won't be down to a single look constituting sexual harassment any day now?
  • by Jfetjunky ( 4359471 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:21AM (#57334458)
    From TFA " The employers include companies involved in moving services, roofing, auto repair, window replacement, retail and home security installation. If not for Facebook’s precise ad targeting, the charge against Facebook says, women “would have clicked on those employment ads in order to learn more about those opportunities and pursue them."

    Is that really the case, or is a hypothetical to show intent? Because if it is true, those are usually jobs squarely in the argument of "you don't hear about women arguing to get THESE jobs", and would be pretty interesting to hear direct evidence to the contrary.
  • by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:46AM (#57334748)
    As an example those that rent out a room in their homes are not bound by the anti discrimination laws. I choose to live with women and not males or a person of my own race or religion that does not violate any laws at all. Now just what can Facebook do? A room for rent posting can be for my own home or a home that I don't even live in. So now will I be discriminated against and not allowed to choose who is in my home?
  • One of my best friends Brian Deneke [wikipedia.org] died when some football jock ran him over after his buddy lost a fist fight. Brian was not a violent person, but he got picked on a lot by the locals because we had green hair and punk rock tee-shirts. I asked the ACLU to look into two different cases back then. One was when the cops kept raiding the local venues and mass-tear-gassing everyone. In one incident, a pregnant girl and a woman with asthma were severely injured by cops spraying them in the face with fire-exting
    • So much misunderstanding to unpack here:

      First and foremost, the ACLU isn't a law enforcement body. Homicide is crime, so they have nothing to do with jail time. That's on the judge, the jury, and the rest of the penal system.

      "Punk" isn't a protected class, so there is no civil rights issue. Punk includes all races, or at least it used to, so this can't be related to racism.

      Raiding the venues might have First Amendment implications if the intent was to suppress punk music or culture. But if those venues had

      • Well, you are right Punks aren't a protected class. That's why Brian's killer got off on a manslaughter charge. It's apparently okay to kill poor or middle class white kids. The ACLU has filed civil lawsuits (including class-action cases) in situations where the criminal case wasn't a success. That's a fact, jack. So, don't act all stupid like there is nothing they could/should do. They didn't, despite the case having implications straight outta their creed [aclu.org]. So much for "defending liberty". In fact, you are
        • My understanding is that ACLU wasn't setup for social justice, it was setup to combat attacks on liberty.

          True-ish. That's what they were set up to do, but they and you are defining "attacks on liberty" differently

          If you convinced them that the cops were macing people because they were punks then the ACLU may have gotten involved. Because they care about the freedom to express yourself. But they aren't really involved in the "no police brutality" thing.

  • Ads are targeted based on interest, what a user searches, clicks, etc. So when more males tend to view tech, code, game, and other based articles and groups and then those males receive targeted ads for jobs in the fields they show interest in, or invites to beta test a game they showed interest in, or discount on tickets to some gaming convention or concert for a band they show interest in, then that isn't discriminatory.

    So the spammers went from general spam ads but corporations fussed and wanted targeted

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