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Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

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Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#71

Post by paulie_a »

avar wrote: post #53
eanzenberg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the filtering is too powerful and accurate? Anyone can get up at 6am to listen to the radio. If you don't show certain people job ads they may never see or know about the listing.

Anyone can create multiple Facebook profiles of various ages and look at job advertisements, which is both cheaper than subscribing to a bunch of newspapers, and less of a hassle than having to get up at 6 am (in the days before people could easily record the radio).

Isn't that against tos and potentially a cfaa violation? You are interfering with their platforms ad targeting.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#72

Post by Karunamon »

mulmen wrote: post #69
Karunamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen in the physical world with, say, a classified ad in a newspaper? It's on the poster of the ad to follow the law, not the paper, is it not?

Facebook is real, these are advertisements for jobs . It's not a game. Laws still apply. Discrimination still isn't legal. Just because you read it on a computer screen instead of on a dead tree carcass does not change the rules.

Who said it was a game or laws don't apply? Please reply to what I actually wrote in its entirety, not what you want me to have written.

If you were seizing on "real world", I think it's pretty clear I meant "physical" rather than "virtual" since we're comparing newspapers to online ads, but I updated the post to clarify.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#73

Post by jklinger410 »

thecompilr wrote: post #63

I think that is perfectly legal, ethical and acceptable. Those companies pay per impression, so they want to maximize the effect of the ad, and reach as many candidates as possible per each $ they pay FB. This is just an ad. No one can stop you from applying to a job directly with the company, irregardless of your age, or any other demographics. Just another sensational headline.

People are constantly complaining that Facebook allows you to target ads at certain people.

Ads have operated this way since their inception, yet critics are finding new ways to make it seem like Facebook is ruining everything by doing exactly what any sensible person would do if they ran Facebook.

I am not a huge fan of Facebook. But I feel like this is the same trope as was hauled out in the "Facebook didn't tell me about my dead friend" post.

I don't respect the downvote I received for this comment. Please argue with me instead of dismiss me.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#75

Post by cutcss »

tmh79 wrote: post #15

I'm astonished that facebook is successfully able to pull the "we're a platform, its not our fault people are using it illegally" excuse here. There is a huge difference between allowing people to freely post content on places like FB, twitter, or Reddit, and selling access the attention of people that fit specific characteristics. How long until the tech giants are held accountable for willfully skirting decades of…

Selling access for attention of people that fit specific characteristics has been done for decades and its fully legal; that's why bingo shows aimed to old people get Viagra ads, that's why the Seventeen magazine gets acne treatment ads; sure there are some non-teenagers buying the Seventeen magazine but its such a tiny minority that its irrelevant.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#76

Post by leggomylibro »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly.

Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is.

If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If billions of computers become vulnerable to malicious actors and a few hundred or thousand people suffer dramatic personal damages, well that's a nice and quiet problem which will be quickly forgotten in the 24-hour news cycle.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#77

Post by mulmen »

thecompilr wrote: post #63

I think that is perfectly legal, ethical and acceptable. Those companies pay per impression, so they want to maximize the effect of the ad, and reach as many candidates as possible per each $ they pay FB. This is just an ad. No one can stop you from applying to a job directly with the company, irregardless of your age, or any other demographics. Just another sensational headline.

This form of discrimination is illegal. Do you think Facebook is above the law? The pricing structure does not change the applicability of anti-discrimination laws.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#78

Post by ImSkeptical »

pcwalton wrote: post #32
conanbatt wrote: post #4

Meh, is it really important. There are many reasons to want younger workers, and there are many reasons you shouldn't want younger workers. I don't find it necessary for the government to step in to help one of the highest paid fields in america.

> There are many reasons to want younger workers, and there are many reasons you shouldn't want younger workers. I don't find it necessary for the government to step in to help one of the highest paid fields in america. Would you feel similarly if you replaced "younger" with "gay" or "female"?

I've never really understood this. Some restaurants, or clothing stores, have wait staff that are all women. In a massage place you can pick the gender of your masseuse - so surely a massage place that was already well staffed with one gender would be justified in gender discrimination. If I'm hiring a baby sitter for my daughter, I'm not going to hire a male person, and I'm sure there are many similar examples. I get that many times there is no justification for hiring preferences based on gender, but surely sometimes there is.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#79

Post by mulmen »

jklinger410 wrote: post #73
thecompilr wrote: post #63

I think that is perfectly legal, ethical and acceptable. Those companies pay per impression, so they want to maximize the effect of the ad, and reach as many candidates as possible per each $ they pay FB. This is just an ad. No one can stop you from applying to a job directly with the company, irregardless of your age, or any other demographics. Just another sensational headline.

People are constantly complaining that Facebook allows you to target ads at certain people. Ads have operated this way since their inception, yet critics are finding new ways to make it seem like Facebook is ruining everything by doing exactly what any sensible person would do if they ran Facebook. I am not a huge fan of Facebook. But I feel like this is the same trope as was hauled out in the "Facebook didn't tell m…

This post is about illegal discrimination, not an undesirable result of a ranking algorithm.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#80

Post by conanbatt »

tptacek wrote: post #6
conanbatt wrote: post #4

Meh, is it really important. There are many reasons to want younger workers, and there are many reasons you shouldn't want younger workers. I don't find it necessary for the government to step in to help one of the highest paid fields in america.

Yes: it is illegal in the United States to discriminate in favor of younger applicants. Tech isn't exempt from the law because it's "one of the highest paid fields"; in fact, that makes it more important to enforce the law, not less.

Its also illegal to carry lobsters of a certain size between states, its doesn't make it important.

Being highly paid shows you that there is much competition for labor, which means some might discriminate and some might not.

If people don't want to hire older people they wont, no amount of law will change that, but it will make it more expensive to hire in general.

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