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Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

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Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#131

Post by jklinger410 »

macinjosh wrote: post #95
jklinger410 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are constantly complaining that Facebook allows you to target ads at certain people. Ads have operated this way since their inception, yet critics are finding new ways to make it seem like Facebook is ruining everything by doing exactly what any sensible person would do if they ran Facebook. I am not a huge fan of Facebook. But I feel like this is the same trope as was hauled out in the "Facebook didn't tell m…

I am not aware of an ad platform that enables you target ads so specifically and in such an effective way. Sure, you could advertise in Maxim to reach heterosexual young males but that doesn't mean your ad is completely invisible to someone else who happens to pickup the magazine. Before Facebook ads were targeted. Facebook ads are exclusionary. While that is valuable and appropriate in some situations it is not in o…

Well I'm thinking based on what I've seen in this thread is that it is already illegal, although rarely enforced.

I do understand being unaware that positions are available harming people looking for those positions.

I'm thinking it would be easy for Facebook to just exclude job ads from certain types of targeting. Is this ad for an employment opportunity? Yes, No. Targeting restrictions apply.

What gets me though is the anger and hypocrisy that I see. People are very willing to mob against Facebook, while many ads and business hiring practices are already breaking these laws.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#132

Post by QAPereo »

leggomylibro wrote: post #76
combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

Mind you, people are still happy to let bridges fall, and infrastructure in general, crumble. “That’s for the next guy to fix” seems to be the order of the day.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#133

Post by grzm »

jklinger410 wrote: post #113
grzm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ads have operated this way since their inception, The ability for ads to target individuals while being invisible to others is something quite new and pernicious. If you advertise on television, your commercial is seen by everyone watching. If you run an ad in print media, everyone who has a copy can read it. Individually targeted advertising is ripe for abuse. If you're interested in reading more how this is reall…

Pernicious as it may be, ads being able to exclude people is a natural evolution of ads, not something malicious as it has been portrayed often recently. In the past it was up to the ad buyer to attempt to exclude people based on their wits. I want to use site X because it has these people instead of site Y because it has those people. Totally normal. Now we are debating on the right to see ads because Facebook has s…

> not something malicious as it has been portrayed often recently.

That's a good point, in that they may not malicious by intent. We do have to look into what effect they're having and whether that's what we actually want. Accepting it as okay because it wasn't done with the intent to harm or accepting it as that's just the way it is is not acceptable, in my opinion.

> "Ads have moved from being ostensibly invisible, to literally invisible. That is the line we're drawing?"

I'm not sure I follow you here. I do think there is a qualitative difference between advertising in a way that is visible to inspection by others and that which is targeted to the individual. One example, from a consumer protection standpoint, how can you ensure truth in advertising if you don't know what ads are being shown to different demographics? In a political context, this is even more problematic. We're having a hard enough time agreeing on basic facts in some circumstances. If different populations are seeing different political advertisements, and people can't know what others are being exposed to, it leads to a situation which is potentially even more insidious. This is different from what has come before.

I see shades of the naturalistic fallacy here: just because this is the way it is doesn't mean it's the way we want it or the way it has to be.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#134

Post by ridgeguy »

dantheman wrote: post #13
danso wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against U.S. federal law for employers to discriminate against people aged 40-or-over on the basis of age. Having job ads that only younger people could see would seemingly fall afoul of that law: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm

I guess the question of targeting different ads at different demographics needs to be answered -- is that ok? Is it ok to recruit at a college job fair?

Yes, I would think.

While the college job fair demographic is statistically biased to the young, there are people over 40 who go to college. As long as the recruiting opportunity is made known to the over-40s as well as those younger, it would seem ok to recruit at a college job fair.

Not ok would be to decline to interview those over 40, keep them from learning about the opportunity, or otherwise exclude them from the process, based on their age.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#135

Post by jorgen123 »

user5994461 wrote: post #94
015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #67

I'm a grad student at an elite American university. Several weeks ago, some other students and I attended a recruiting presentation put on by a large multinational company I won't name. The woman who gave the presentation services her company's contract with a tech company, that, let's just say, has a big share of the search engine market. She emphasized that she was looking for diversity, because, as she said, "the…

>>> I'd like to start a business in 3 or 4 years, and I'm seriously considering going out of my way to target people like him. It'll be my competitive advantage. He could be 10 times more expensive than you. Did you consider that?

> He could be 10 times more expensive than you. Did you consider that?

That is an assumption that may be invalid. Everybody is in their own private situation. Your assumption will be true for many but not for all. Many older folks may not need a top salary anymore and will take an average income for the pleasure of working with other fine people and doing interesting things. At some point in your life the career ladder will be less important than quality of life.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#136

Post by racer-v »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

There's a perception in computer programming that any experience outside of the specific language, library and toolkit being used on the project is irrelevant. Or worse, an impediment; "I don't want somebody with bad habits and instincts acquired from working on now-obsolete systems". Managers really believe a kid with 3 years JavaScript experience and 1 year of Vue is as good (or better) than a senior programmer with the same, plus 20 years of Unix, C++, protocol implementation, and similar "baggage".

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#137

Post by redcalx »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

I completely agree with everything you said.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#138

Post by walshemj »

avar wrote: post #41
tmh79 wrote: post #15

I'm astonished that facebook is successfully able to pull the "we're a platform, its not our fault people are using it illegally" excuse here. There is a huge difference between allowing people to freely post content on places like FB, twitter, or Reddit, and selling access the attention of people that fit specific characteristics. How long until the tech giants are held accountable for willfully skirting decades of…

If you mainly advertised for employees in certain newspapers you'd get people of a given political leaning. If you advertised on the radio at 6 in the morning you probably wouldn't get anyone under 35. It's not obvious to me why employers should be able to use the implicit filtering traditional media provides, but not the explicit filtering new advertising platforms provide.

And in places like NI not advertising jobs in both traditions papers can get you in trouble with the law and potentially serious Gentlemen with scary tats and who like paining folkloric paintings on gable ends from which ever side you pissed off.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#139

Post by noncoml »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

> It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience

More experience also means ability to see through management's bullshit.

> It just don't make no sense. Other fields reward grayhairs. You see some sixty-year-old painter or architect or carpenter, you think he's probably pretty good

The difference here is employee vs professional

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#140

Post by raz32dust »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

Knowledge in the software industry tends to get outdated much faster than in other industries. While there are timeless software engineering practices that are good and evergreen, about 70% of my knowledge today will be outdated in 5 years. This is not true of other industries. Sure, other professionals need to keep themselves updated as well. But the percentage of knowledge that a bridge architect needs to update is much lesser (say 20%?).

The cost of failure is much higher. It is easier to correct shitty software. So the focus is on delivering fast.

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