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Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

propublica.org

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Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#11

Post by danso »

I’ve never tried to place a FB ad, so I don’t know what the interface looks like. But wouldn’t it be fairly straightforward on their end to disable gender (or other protected classes) as options for targeting when it comes to job or housing ads? Or are advertisers not required to choose a “category” for their ad, in the way that on Craigslist, you have to select a category to post in?

Even if there is no such categorization, it’s not a difficult NLP challenge to detect that the content of an ad is for job hiring, or to know that the advertiser is based in the U.S. FB could implement a warning/reminder dialog similar to how GMail tells you that you haven’t actually included an attachment yet.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#12

Post by meowface »

patmcc wrote: post #7

I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy? Would this be differ…

Yes, it would be very different. For example, the two things you listed are probably rather bad proxies for gender (even if it's only hypothetical).

All they had to do was pick the niche they're going for (which may incidentally turn out to be highly skewed to one gender) rather than making it 100% one gender. I honestly don't even understand the purpose of advertising anything to only men or only women. (The obvious answer would be "sexism", but presumably the advertiser is making some assumption of economic benefit for only targeting one or the other.)

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#13

Post by singlow »

mikeash wrote: post #8
patcheudor wrote: post #5

Blaming Facebook muddies the water a bit. Ultimately the companies advertising on Facebook broke the law when they checked the wrong boxes. Facebook should; however, make that information public knowledge by allowing the public to see the advertising parameters of any given ad if they are curious but to my knowledge, no law requires it. Maybe it's time to start having a conversation about the need advertising transpa…

Can this box be checked legally?

Sure, if you are advertising a dress shirt.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#14

Post by wincy »

mikeash wrote: post #8
patcheudor wrote: post #5

Blaming Facebook muddies the water a bit. Ultimately the companies advertising on Facebook broke the law when they checked the wrong boxes. Facebook should; however, make that information public knowledge by allowing the public to see the advertising parameters of any given ad if they are curious but to my knowledge, no law requires it. Maybe it's time to start having a conversation about the need advertising transpa…

Can this box be checked legally?

Sure, if you’re trying to sell something you can target the advertising however you want.

I think the issue arises when you’re using an advertisement to look for employees.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#15

Post by gascan »

meowface wrote: post #12
patmcc wrote: post #7

I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy? Would this be differ…

Yes, it would be very different. For example, the two things you listed are probably rather bad proxies for gender (even if it's only hypothetical). All they had to do was pick the niche they're going for (which may incidentally turn out to be highly skewed to one gender) rather than making it 100% one gender. I honestly don't even understand the purpose of advertising anything to only men or only women. (The obvious…

I honestly don't even understand the purpose of advertising anything to only men or only women.

If you pay per view, it's entirely rational to target towards the demographic that produces the most spend for your ad budget.

Why would you waste money advertising, e.g., mascara or sanitary pads to men? Sure, there's probably some infinitesimal fraction of men who would be interested, but targeting them profitably is not a trivial exercise.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#16

Post by carbocation »

patmcc wrote: post #7

I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy? Would this be differ…

As a legal layperson, to me it seems that the argument would focus around this topic: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/#application_and_hiring

Basically, I think the better lens is one that looks at discriminatory hiring practices, rather than one that looks at advertisements to a selected demographic.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#17

Post by oh_sigh »

beatpanda wrote: post #4

This is unambiguously illegal and Facebook could stop doing this anytime it wants. Craigslist reminds its users about anti-discrimination laws before they post and provides a means for users to flag illegal ads.

Not really, because some jobs are legitimately only available to people a certain gender and so facebook would still need to make a judgement call.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#18

Post by contem »

From the original pitch deck:

> thefacebook.com allows for targeted advertisement on the basis of any (or a combination of) the following parameters:

> College/University, Sexual Orientation, Degree Type, Zip Code, Concentration, Dating interests, Courses taken, Personal Interests, Class Year, Clubs and Jobs, House/Dormitory, Political Bent, Age, Number of friends, Gender, Site Usage.

So blatant targeted advertisement has always been part of Facebook. Lots of (now wealthy) investors and early adopters had no problem that its users were being targeted on the basis of their sexuality.

The market will go where it wants to go: Instead of explicitly targeting men, you now target people that liked WWE, Family Guy, study business school, and searched for "hackernews". Or you make the advertisement itself appealing to men (and take the small loss on an irrelevant audience).

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#19

Post by jazzyjackson »

oh_sigh wrote: post #17
beatpanda wrote: post #4

This is unambiguously illegal and Facebook could stop doing this anytime it wants. Craigslist reminds its users about anti-discrimination laws before they post and provides a means for users to flag illegal ads.

Not really, because some jobs are legitimately only available to people a certain gender and so facebook would still need to make a judgement call.

???? like what?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#20

Post by Paul_Dessert »

patmcc wrote: post #7

I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy? Would this be differ…

Exactly. This doesn't necessarily mean these companies advertised the job to one gender. It simply means the ad was targeted at a specific gender. For all we know, the companies spent twice as much on a different ad set for women.
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