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Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

propublica.org

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101–110 of 407 posts

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#101

Post by cbovis »

On the fence about this one.

Whilst targeting individual groups can certainly lead to inequalities there is the problem of tailoring ads to an audience. One way a company may wish to make their ads more appealing is by showing relatable people in adverts.

If a company is running two variations of the same job advert, one featuring women and one featuring men, distributing coverage across the two variations evenly, then is there still an issue? I would argue not, yet introducing a non-gender targeting rule would make this impossible to do and could in fact have the opposite affect to what was desired by the regulation.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#102

Post by busterarm »

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.

That's not really how digital advertising targeting works though. In fact, they go to great lengths to make sure you illegally exclude by a class (Google is especially strict about this) and don't transmit anything that is considered PII or "potentially PII". Gender, like IP address, is in the potentially PII realm.

What this actually is going to do is target "people interested in typically male interests". That is going to end up including men, women and trans men. More importantly, the hit rate of gender-targeted ad spend trends towards 50% regardless of gender. It is not an effective tactic.

This is totally overblown.

/signed someone who used to be a digital advertiser in the legal space with a yearly budgeted spend north of $100 million.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#103

Post by mmt »

mankash666 wrote: post #65

We need to stop treating Facebook or any digital infrastructure as culpable when it's users are the ones responsible. As far as Facebook's concerned, it's an advertiser picking a demographic. I bet they don't know what the ad is about! What next? Hold AT&T culpable for providing internet to these advertisers?

> What next? Hold AT&T culpable for providing internet to these advertisers?

If AT&T is otherwise interacting with the content (e.g. throttling or zero-rating based on it being an ad), I don't see a problem with that.

Traditionally, common carriers were protected under the premise that they didn't discriminate based on content. In this respect, I think internet carriers are putting themselves in a precarious position in not supporting net neutrality.

Once a carrier shows that it can (and does) discriminate content, what makes it different from a publisher like a newspaper?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#104

Post by mantas »

bobthepanda wrote: post #84
eappleby wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about recruiting from all-female schools like Barnard?

Barnard is an all-female school. And how often are jobs only open to Barnard students? Facebook is not a single-gender platform.

Advertising on one platform for one gender doesn't mean the job is only for one gender. And if job was open to one gender only, there're already laws against that...

Saying that "FB is not a single gender platform" is like saying that "Higher education is not a single gender platform".

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#105

Post by zwkrt »

p1necone wrote: post #90
twblalock wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads are illegal, and publishing them is illegal, and the hiring practice you described is also illegal outside of very specific contexts.

Male only employment ads are illegal, but does that mean Facebook should have to change their UI for each case where the rules around advertising are different, or should people posting advertising be required to follow the law?

That first one. As mentioned above Facebook is also breaking the law

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#106

Post by CyberDildonics »

macspoofing wrote: post #91
detaro wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems wrong to allow companies to escape legal rules by choosing to advertise in ways that have badly-fitting payment model. The multiple ads question is interesting though, and might very well be a valid defense, since they then are advertising to both.

You seem to be validating men-only advertising by implying that hiring women is done for no other reason than charity. If a company wants to cut itself at the knees by courting half the market ... let them.

How did they imply that hiring women is charity?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#107

Post by ramblerouser »

obmelvin wrote: post #71
eappleby wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about recruiting from all-female schools like Barnard?

If you were to only recruit from single gender schools then I personally would have an issue with it, same as this issue. However, if you are recruiting from many universities and some happen to be single gender, that is not discriminating.

Does "have an issue with it" mean "put people in jail for it"? Because thats what it sounds like you're getting at.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#108

Post by ggggtez »

pteredactyl wrote: post #30

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 radi…

>why would I not choose the most effective form of advertising for me?

Because it's illegal? Advertising jobs only to white men hurts society. A modern democracy understands that freedom loving people need access to jobs. So yeah, you are prevented from infringing on others' freedoms.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#109

Post by smvtsailor »

pteredactyl wrote: post #96
mreome wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that under the law, you as an employer are not allowed to make a hiring related choice that in any way discriminates against a protected class (with some exceptions discussed on other comments). You might expect to only get applications from men, but legally you can not target men specifically. The inclusion of 'women and people of color strongly encouraged to apply' is actually walking a fine legal line…

Which law is that specifically? And, as a business owner, please tell me why it would not be in my best interest to hire the best person for the job?

Civil rights act, title 7 IIRC

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#110

Post by SpaceManNabs »

busterarm wrote: post #102
bobthepanda wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not really how digital advertising targeting works though. In fact, they go to great lengths to make sure you illegally exclude by a class (Google is especially strict about this) and don't transmit anything that is considered PII or "potentially PII". Gender, like IP address, is in the potentially PII realm. What this actually is going to do is target "people interested in typically male interests". That is g…

100 million?????

Is this normal? Did it actually work? I always wondered on the ROI of ads. It must be high if spending $100 million has no one but me replying...

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