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Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

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Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#301

Post by nailer »

thecopy wrote: post #275
nailer wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would they pay Facebook to show their ad to people they are not interested in? Because not doing so is illegal in most first-world countries.

What is the legal text supporting this?

There's a lot of countries we're talking about here (and I'm honestly surprised an adult who has hired someone wouldn't be aware) but from a 5 second DuckDuckGo:

> The only thing the employer has to do is avoid criteria which touch on race, religion, gender, age or disability.

> Allen M., Esq. Attorney

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#302

Post by bluto »

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…

Re the FB example and action movies. Action movies are not a protected Federal class as are age, race, sex, religion, and national origin.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#303

Post by ericdykstra »

mdasen wrote: post #203
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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact One thing you might be interested in reading about is Disparate Impact. Discrimination cases can be proven by showing that a practice has a disproportionately adverse impact on members of a protected class, even in the absence of intentional discrimination. The Supreme Court noted in Griggs v. Duke Power Co that the Civil Rights Act bans "not only overt discrimination bu…

Disparate Impact is one of the most illiberal policies in America. Companies need to be so careful that their results can't be construed as discriminatory that they need to go out of their way to make their hiring practices discriminatory. You could have a totally blind hiring process (remove names from resumes, modulate voices in phone interviews, never get any indication of race/sex/age of applicant) and still be liable for a lawsuit if you don't hit the arbitrary "80% rule" benchmark.

The Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact doctrines are diametrically opposed, yet both can lead to lawsuits. When a company gets big enough, it's going to start running into discrimination lawsuits no matter what they do. There are things they can do to offset the damages (diversity training, diversity department, certain types of donations), but the end result can still be settlements in the tens of millions of dollars.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#304

Post by scarface74 »

bagacrap wrote: post #298
scarface74 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it would still be a problem. I can’t speak for job postings but I can speak for real estate. There are certain things that you are not allowed to say in advertisement or as a real estate agent. Even in jobs, you would be walking a very fine line if an obviously pregnant woman walked in and you started mentioning that the place you work is great for mothers.

Could you elaborate on what line that is? How would you go slightly farther and cross it?

I don’t think it’s prima facie illegal to mention that, but it does open you up to a discrimination lawsuit. The chances of winning might be slim, but why take the chance?

Crossing the line would be “This job requires a lot of travel,are you sure you could handle it with a newborn?”

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#305

Post by sah2ed »

tlb wrote: post #28
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.

Interesting links.

For a moment there, I thought the ad by Motor Institute of America shown on the page of Popular Mechanics you linked to, was also present in your second link to the The Ladies Home Journal, albeit with a different ad copy.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#306

Post by pxtail »

busterarm wrote: post #267
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of viewers were women on ads targeted to women? How much better than chance is that when you take into account there are more men than women on facebook? It seems low given how well they can guess less tangible things like sexual orientation...

Which is why ad targeting based on gender is perfectly fine.

well, in this case it isn't perfectly fine because it shouldn't be described as "Gender. Target ads to women, men or people of all genders." if there is only 50/50 chance to display ad to woman. Isn't it just ridiculous and straight lie to potential advertisement buyer?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#307

Post by dao- »

yostrovs wrote: post #283
dao- wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only friends with people on Facebook who know my gender, so it doesn't really matter. Plus it only actually shows in a few places such as "xxx replied to his/her comment" notifications.

Any idea how Facebook handles people with rare gender pronouns? Doesn't Canadian law require use of chosen gender pronouns and Facebook operates in Canada.

I think I've seen "their" used instead of "her" or "his" where people declined to specify any gender. This works in English but not in German for instance, where I think they write "ihren/seinen" which translates to "her/his".

I suppose that's as far as Facebook's support for gender choices goes.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#308

Post by occamrazor »

ALittleLight wrote: post #38
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…

It's interesting to think about. If I'm looking for someone to ride on a garbage truck, there's probably a 95% chance the future employee will be male, but acting on this expectation, by advertising to men instead of women - getting more employees per dollar spent, is sexist. Likewise, if I needed to hire an au pair I'd have to advertise to men and women equally?

In relation to your last question: in many countries (not sure about the US) jobs like au pair, house maid, babysitter, caretaker, are explicitly exempted from nondiscrimination rules.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#309

Post by arnjerobben »

Paul_Dessert wrote: post #20
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.

Why would they do that?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#310

Post by dsfyu404ed »

adamlett wrote: post #263
fapjacks wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of smells, my initial reaction is that Disparate Impact smells broken. I can see pretty clearly how it would be possible to argue legally that advertising a job internally and not externally (to a company) is discriminatory. And following that further along, in this way, I can see a pretty straightforward method of declaring any job advertising as discriminatory under that decision. I think law like this is…

I think law like this is broken because it's like many (American) laws where it ends up selectively enforced Laws like these are not criminal laws, and are not meant to be enforced if by that you mean policed . It's up to someone to file a lawsuit, if they think the law is on their side. Then a judge will have to rule whether or not the law applies in that particular case, and in doing so they may set a precedent whi…

The fact that it's not actively enforced by the state doesn't matter.

It's basically the civil equivalent of an actively enforced law nobody can possibly comply with at all times that gives the cops the power to harass whoever they want whenever they want (e.g. the 55mph speed limit on I95 in the Boston area) except instead of empowering cops to harass people on flimsy pretext they're empowering plantiffs to harass companies on flimsy pretext.

Laws and precedents (in the case of civil litigation) that well meaning parties can't possibly comply with are bad.

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