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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

#21

Post by bobthepanda »

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…

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health; a man can buy Cosmopolitan. What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#22

Post by meowface »

gascan wrote: post #15
meowface wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In classic rubber duck-debugging style, I ended up realizing that as soon as I pressed submit.

In that case I suppose it's not very ethically questionable for things that are very clearly 100% (within a minuscule margin of error) men's only (prostate health, etc.) or women's only (sanitary pads).

I guess the real quandary is for stuff that's male-dominated like hard, dangerous physical labor (coal mining etc.), but not 100% men. If a recruiter can statistically prove that the most efficient use of their advertising dollars to hire for a coal mining job is by targeting only men, 1) is it sexist and/or unethical, and 2) should it be legal?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#23

Post by cm2187 »

nbar1 wrote: post #10
mikeash wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this box be checked legally?

Yes, you can advertise to only one sex. The problem is they advertised a job ad.

Depends on the job. You won’t send a female cleaner in a male locker room.

Also some recruiter are explicitely trying to correct a gender imbalance and are therefore actively seeking female candidates. Does that become unethical to advertise to women?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#24

Post by jamescostian »

gascan wrote: post #15
meowface wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you waste money advertising to women who don't want mascara or don't need pads? I would think you'd be better of targetting people who bought some sort of eye makeup if you wanted to sell mascara, and target people who bought pads or tampons if you were selling pads.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#25

Post by jonny_eh »

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…

Facebook should make it much harder to use their product illegally. They can hide protected demographic filters when ads are of a protected nature, like jobs or housing.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#26

Post by maccio92 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #21
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…

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#27

Post by gascan »

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…

While I see both sides of the argument, as long as the advertiser pays per view, it seems wrong to require the listing to target demographics that are almost certainly uninterested.

Your example of listing a job in Men's Health but not Cosmopolitan seems good. Technically not a perfect analogue as a woman always could buy Men's Health, but in practice very similar.

Spinning off into a different angle, what if an advertiser gets the most qualified female applicants advertising through LinkedIn, and the most qualified male applicants through Facebook? (Again assuming pay per view) Is it wrong for them to target women & men on separate platforms with separate ads? Utterly hypothetical of course.

Or yet a different angle, what if they have ad "A" and ad "B", each subtly designed to excite one of the sexes. Perhaps an ad for the Marines, one emphasizing toughness & grit, the other emphasizing teamwork & "stronger together". Target one at men, one at women. Legal?

To me it seems to come down to the overall behavior of the employer, not Facebook or any one ad.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#28

Post by tlb »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #6

Marketing segmentation wasn’t really used at all until the mid-70’s to deal with a period declining sales in the US economy. Old people weren’t even treated as a specific segment beyond 65+ until like 1990. A very productive world existed without any significant marketing targeting other than geolocation and some other rough measures. Perhaps we are returning to such a state of things.

The practice goes back much further than that. Consider two popular magazines from 1931:

https://archive.org/stream/PopularMechanics1931#page/n9

https://archive.org/details/TheLadiesHomeJournalV48N12193112

The ads are not the same due to marketing segmentation.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#29

Post by Meph504 »

(from another thread very similar to this)

I really don't see how the companies placing the ads, aren't going to get hammered for it.

But Facebook is doing nothing illegal, unless the ads, were placed for jobs with Facebook.

Just as newspaper/radio/tv aren't required not to post job adverts that violate the EEOC's rules.

For clarity, According to the EEOC (https://www1.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/index.cfm?renderforprin...)

Recruitment

It is also illegal for an employer to recruit new employees in a way that discriminates against them because of their race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

For example, an employer's reliance on word-of-mouth recruitment by its mostly Hispanic work force may violate the law if the result is that almost all new hires are Hispanic.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#30

Post by pteredactyl »

I don't understand the problem. The flipside would be they're letting Job Advertisers only target women.

I wonder what those numbers look like: What percentage of job advertisers only target women?

If I'm spending ad dollars, why would I not choose the most effective form of advertising for me?

That's not to say they're not hiring women. In which case it'd be more dubious.

Last week in the Bay Area I heard a TSA radio advertisement, in which they said, 'women and people of color strongly encouraged to apply.' Imagine the outrage if they had said 'white men strongly encouraged to apply'?

All the qualification based on immutable characteristics, versus actual ability to do the job, makes me feel very uneasy.

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