Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 156 posts

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#71

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

rvnx wrote: post #15
HappyPanacea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is gained from allowing such bias?

Situation: Men are clicking on job of mechanics, more than women. Consequence: men are now more likely shown mechanics job. What is gained: more accurate content, more interesting content, more engagement. As a result: men are more likely to be shown jobs interesting for men, and women are more likely to be shown jobs interesting for women. Which means: Increased chances to find a matching job, and to save time doing…

[flagged]

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#72

Post by youoy »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #66
standardUser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think anyone is meaningfully harmed by being algorithmically shown job ads stereotypical of one gender rather than another If you show me a lower paying girl job instead of a higher paying boy job, and I apply for and get the girl job, how is the company tricking me into applying for the lower paying job based on my gender not a problem to you? How was I not harmed by having a better opportunity hidden from…

Maybe the actual reason you are applying for and getting a lower paying girl job is because you lack the initiative to try to get a higher paying job yourself and instead are blindly making life decisions based on what ads in media you happen to encounter, and then blame this on some company tricking you.

Ahh nothing better than seeing someone on the wild thinking that their life decisions are 100% independent from their environment. Enjoy your false sense of freedom while you can!

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#73

Post by Alex2037 »

flir wrote: post #59
Alex2037 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again, these are ads . not job postings, job ads . it's not "harmful" to enable advertisers to choose which audiences to target.

The job was posted was in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.' But it was posted , and apparently that's what matters. So the ads that signpost you to the posting that only [people with special glasses] can see are just peachy.

[flagged]

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#74

Post by inglor_cz »

tokai wrote: post #70
inglor_cz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt that there are people who operate on a "well, I am a Muslim so I want Muslim employees" scheme or similar ones (woman, black, young), but I do believe that this should be covered by freedom of association. I do understand that you think otherwise, I have met many people who see things differently.

Freedom of association has nothing to do with companies and employers. You misunderstand what it is completely if you believe so.

There is nothing to "misunderstand" here, this is not algebra but law, and law often erects artificial and arbitrary barriers in the middle of things, in order to further some specific interests or agenda.

The closest analogy I can find is the concept that commercial speech deserves less protection than private speech.

It is a matter of opinion and prevailing mores. In my opinion, becoming an employee is a voluntary decision (unlike, say, being drafted into a war), and should be treated the same as becoming a trade union member or a volunteer in a church organization.

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#75

Post by vlovich123 »

seneca wrote: post #24
vlovich123 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it.

> Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it. It absolutely is in this case. The whole reason to target ads is to make the people who receive them more likely to engage with them. For instance, including men, elderly people, and children in the target demographic for a preschool teacher job advertisement would make that advertisement signific…

It took a long time for doctors to become more balanced despite it not necessarily being economically efficient. There’s inertia where people don’t like changing the status quo. I don’t know if solving the ad targeting changes anything given that the bias is on the advertiser side, but it could conceivably change the candidate pool that is being selected from.

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#76

Post by potatoproduct »

paperhatwriter wrote: post #4
JuniperMesos wrote: post #3

> The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said in a February 18 decision that Facebook’s algorithm reinforced gender stereotypes by mainly showing “typically female professions” to female Facebook users in the Netherlands and that Meta (META), the social platform’s owner, should have monitored and adjusted its algorithm to prevent that. > For example, ads for mechanic positions were predominantly shown to men, whi…

Can you explain why you think this?

To ban this would mean in principle you need to ban any kind of algorithm that uses user and/or activity data for any platform.

Ie. No content recommendations on reddit, tikok, facebook, youtube, amazon, twiter, etc.

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#77

Post by flir »

Alex2037 wrote: post #73
flir wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job was posted was in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.' But it was posted , and apparently that's what matters. So the ads that signpost you to the posting that only [people with special glasses] can see are just peachy.

[flagged]

"A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true."

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#78

Post by hunterpayne »

standardUser wrote: post #42
seneca wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising or not advertising jobs to people is not "tricking" them. This is a childish argument.

The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights thinks it makes perfect sense. RTFA

You do realize that the people who work there are economically incentivized to think that? In exactly the same way that Uncle Bob (who has never been a coder) is economically incentivized to talk about clean code or a salesperson is incentivized to talk about the product they are selling.

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#79

Post by tmoertel »

paperhatwriter wrote: post #4
JuniperMesos wrote: post #3

> The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said in a February 18 decision that Facebook’s algorithm reinforced gender stereotypes by mainly showing “typically female professions” to female Facebook users in the Netherlands and that Meta (META), the social platform’s owner, should have monitored and adjusted its algorithm to prevent that. > For example, ads for mechanic positions were predominantly shown to men, whi…

Can you explain why you think this?

Not the OP, but:

This is actually a thorny problem.

Say you have an advertising system that knows nothing about a user’s gender. This system, by construction, cannot vary its ad selections based on gender. But the system does remember whether users have expressed interest in the ads it has previously shown them.

Now say you have a job that in general appeals to one gender almost exclusively. The system will, given time, learn which users are interested in ads for this job. Those users will just happen to be almost exclusively of one gender.

If the ad system stops showing ads for this job to the users who have demonstrated they don’t want to see them, is that gender discrimination?

One can make an argument either way. But either way, it’s not going to be a clear-cut argument. There’s some subtlety required.

Re: Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads: European human rights body

#80

Post by inglor_cz »

vlovich123 wrote: post #75
seneca wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discrimination is not rooted in economic efficiency so I don’t follow the argument that market forces would correct it. It absolutely is in this case. The whole reason to target ads is to make the people who receive them more likely to engage with them. For instance, including men, elderly people, and children in the target demographic for a preschool teacher job advertisement would make that advertisement signific…

It took a long time for doctors to become more balanced despite it not necessarily being economically efficient. There’s inertia where people don’t like changing the status quo. I don’t know if solving the ad targeting changes anything given that the bias is on the advertiser side, but it could conceivably change the candidate pool that is being selected from.

This is basically just a consequence of people being a long-lived species.

The question is whether the side effects of artificially speeding up the process won't negate the original intent.

Also, the very fundament may be wrong. The authors of anti-discrimination statutes seem to be awfully certain of things such as "men can take care of babies in nurseries equally well as women can". We do not know if this is, in fact, statistically true. It is more of an egalitarian article of faith.

Post reply on HN