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Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

propublica.org

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Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#251

Post by peteretep »

> Not just Facebook, but any targeted advertising platform that can target based on demographic could do this.

I'd like to point out that specifically you can NOT do this on Facebook any more, or at least not if Facebook find it out. They make you mark your ads as being job posts, and remove demographic targeting from that.

The headline here is irritating, because the headline being shown is two years old. The headline should be the second half of it, which is:

"After two years the Federal Government confirms demographic advertising of jobs is illegal"

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#252

Post by nitwit005 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #172
formercoder wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it biased in a bad way? It’s really hard to measure someone’s ability to do a job, especially for a more senior role. Therefore, I feel comfortable hiring people recommended to me by others that I trust.

Because white men that dominate those jobs already typically know white men to recommend for those jobs.

Do you actually know of any high paying jobs completely dominated by white men anymore? Plenty of non-white doctors, scientists and engineers certainly.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#253

Post by tnel77 »

erichocean wrote: post #203
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #191

Not just Facebook, but any targeted advertising platform that can target based on demographic could do this. Its not the first example of unethical behaviour using this technology. Alcohol gets targeted to Alcholics, Gambling gets targets to problem gamblers. Targeted advertising for certain purposes should be illegal, including employment ads, alcohol ads, gambing ads and any kind of political ad. There's just too m…

Or we could outright ban advertising everywhere, for any reason, full stop.

When someone says “full stop,” I like to wonder if they think that that makes their belief more correct than it otherwise would have been interpreted.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#254

Post by goatinaboat »

erichocean wrote: post #203
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #191

Not just Facebook, but any targeted advertising platform that can target based on demographic could do this. Its not the first example of unethical behaviour using this technology. Alcohol gets targeted to Alcholics, Gambling gets targets to problem gamblers. Targeted advertising for certain purposes should be illegal, including employment ads, alcohol ads, gambing ads and any kind of political ad. There's just too m…

Or we could outright ban advertising everywhere, for any reason, full stop.

If a person needs a product or service, generally they can just go out and buy it. Advertising, whether or commercial or political, is really about exploiting psychological vulnerabilities in order to make people act against their own best interests. The promise of happiness if you buy this or that project, a momentary dopamine rush that serves to mask a real problem just long enough to set the mark up for their next unnecessary purchase. I wouldn’t go so far as an outright ban but I would regulate that all ads, on and offline, are pure text only, standard font, no targeting and lying in an ad to be a crime, just facts about the product only.

I consider myself to be a capitalist but this is a public health issue. Ad companies including Facebook and Google are the tobacco companies of the modern day.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#255

Post by seanmcdirmid »

m0zg wrote: post #249
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t completely true. You can land a job via an ad, it is very very hard, but it is probably a bit higher than 1%. Especially entry level positions where a professional network isn’t expected anyways.

Be that as it may, if I were a hiring manager today whose bonus and promo opportunities depend on meeting the diversity quota, you can guess how I'd be setting up the targeting on my hiring ad campaign, ethics be damned. That having been said, I fully agree that such targeting in job ads in particular should be illegal. I agree with this out of my own rational self interest, as a straight white male in my 40s. Other…

Well, if you were smart about it you wouldn’t focus on ads at all. Rather you’d figure out how to poach known talent from other companies. Easier still if you were looking for entry levels, hitting the universities directly would work given recent enrollment increases (start them out with good internships during the sophomore or junior years would be much more useful here).

I don’t see how an ad would be effective at all in this hiring climate. Yes, you might get something, but you would be unlikely to get a woman or underrepresented minority hire, even if they were specifically targeted. They have much better options than to answer these ads.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#258

Post by kitsune_ »

soulofmischief wrote: post #238
kjs3 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "modern world" sucks at figuring out how to help people find the right kind of job for one of two reasons: 1) they keep thinking about gender and age as qualifiers for jobs for which those factors have absolutely zero relevance (girls are bad at math! Old people can't learn new things!), or 2) They invent the delusion that gender and age disqualifies you for a job (girls will just get pregnant and leave! oldster…

I'm glad you care about these things, but to say those are the only two reasons why we have trouble correctly matching people to fulfilling jobs is asinine.

This very post is about targeted advertising to keep women and older people from seeing job ads. You then went off a tangent about employer-prospect matching in general.

What other reasons are there that lead women and older people to be excluded? I'd probably add salary as a factor with older people.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#259

Post by PeterStuer »

nefitty wrote: post #79
DoreenMichele wrote: post #24

I have mixed feelings about this. I am absolutely aware this can be a means to intentionally exclude specific groups due to prejudice and can be a polite way to do terrible things. I get that. But the reality is that the modern world seems to seriously suck at figuring out how to help people find the right kind of job for themselves or help employers find the right people for the job. I keep thinking "Surely, there m…

This is a great idea. What about a service that allows proctored skills tests for applicants? Like Sitepoint but with some additional verification layers. Hiring managers would then pick a tech stack or set of skills they need, and matches would bubble up based on applicants in the area with the relevant skills. The "culture fit" question could be another egg to crack. Who knows if interviews are the best way to figu…

Sounds like you are hiring faceless nameless cogs in a machine.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#260

Post by keiferski »

erichocean wrote: post #203
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #191

Not just Facebook, but any targeted advertising platform that can target based on demographic could do this. Its not the first example of unethical behaviour using this technology. Alcohol gets targeted to Alcholics, Gambling gets targets to problem gamblers. Targeted advertising for certain purposes should be illegal, including employment ads, alcohol ads, gambing ads and any kind of political ad. There's just too m…

Or we could outright ban advertising everywhere, for any reason, full stop.

Then expect to see a massive increase in product placement within written content and TV shows, as well as whole series which are subtly sponsored. At least with traditional advertising they are direct about it. Marketing budgets have to be used somewhere...
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