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

Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 407 posts

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#261

Post by user1000 »

gascan wrote: post #27
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…

While I see both sides of the argument, as long as the advertiser pays per view, it seems wrong to require the listing to target demographics that are almost certainly uninterested. Your example of listing a job in Men's Health but not Cosmopolitan seems good. Technically not a perfect analogue as a woman always could buy Men's Health, but in practice very similar. Spinning off into a different angle, what if an adve…

"While I see both sides of the argument, as long as the advertiser pays per view, it seems wrong to require the listing to target demographics that are almost certainly uninterested."

1) Is making a little economy really more important than giving equal opportunity ? 2) What makes you think you, or the person that designed the ad, knows best what might women (or any other group that might be discriminated against with similar practices) are interested in?

And that, especially when advertising for a job! Women may not be particularly "excited" by the message that conveys the ad, but they might be looking for a job all the same.

All your points sound the same to me, it comes down to : "women like cooking, teamwork and are not interested in being trucker, policemen or technologists, and men like sports and being stong and don't want to be a hairdresser or a nurse" now let's apply these hard facts to cut the costs when advertising for jobs. That way we make sure our stereotypes stay true, and it doesn't matter if it's unfair, it's just how are things. And I don't think I can change your strongly stereotypical view of gender in this comment alone, but I'm telling you : that can change, and women want that to change, because they want equal pay, and equal pay also means equal opportunity to high paying jobs.

Employment opportunity is not the ideal topic to split hair, let's just not target ads at one gender.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#262

Post by katzgrau »

gascan wrote: post #27
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…

While I see both sides of the argument, as long as the advertiser pays per view, it seems wrong to require the listing to target demographics that are almost certainly uninterested. Your example of listing a job in Men's Health but not Cosmopolitan seems good. Technically not a perfect analogue as a woman always could buy Men's Health, but in practice very similar. Spinning off into a different angle, what if an adve…

Fine tuning a message to an audience segment is something every marketer should do. When I first read the headline, this was the use case that seemed obvious.

Different audience segments may want different things from a job. For example, an increasing number of workplaces are offering paid paternity leave. Maybe that's something you want to specifically mention to men.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#263

Post by adamlett »

fapjacks wrote: post #216
mdasen wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 which will influence how later cases will be judged.

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

You may think so, but this is why we have judges. Just because you can make and argument, it doesn't mean that argument will be persuasive to a judge. You may further think that this means that the outcome of a trial is arbitrary, and you would be right in the sense that law is not an exact science, and the result of a verdict can be difficult to predict if the evidence is weak and/or there is no precedent. But you would also be wrong in the sense that each verdict rendered helps to set precedent, and judges (and lawyers) always look to see what precedent has been set, both when it comes to how to interpret the law, but also when it comes to establishing what counts and doesn't count as evidence.

Disclaimer: IANAL. I'm not even American.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#264

Post by jrs235 »

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…

Regarding age based discrimination, discriminating against the "young" is allowed as they are not a protected class. Allowing the refinement and targeting of ads towards older people would be okay. But restricting the ads to only younger people would not be. At least by law in the U.S.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#265

Post by dao- »

wruza wrote: post #252
dao- wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I can't get Facebook ads targeted to a different gender. Actually you can by lying to Facebook. I have been doing this for a long time and the bullshit ads I get are kind of amusing.

Provided that fb is a social network, lying to it must be lying to your environment?

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.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#266

Post by deaps »

I find the title a bit misleading - more so puts the blame in the 'wrong' place.

Let me explain briefly. Facebook allows advertisers to pay a rate per advertisement displayed. Why shouldn't Facebook 'let' their paying customers show the ads to those they are interested in. AKA why would they pay Facebook to show their ad to people they are not interested in?

That being said - I've followed most of the discussion...and there are a lot of strong points. I just think that the title shouldn't that Facebook LET them advertise in a certain way - it should be the company that is advertising the positions only to men - although they certainly could be targeting men through that channel - and targeting women through another channel - with differing types of ads all together.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#267

Post by busterarm »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #257
busterarm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to explain that gender targeting is imprecise. When I say the hit rate of ads targeting women is 50%, I mean that of the number of people who see ads that were targeted at women, only 50% of them were women. Targeting men works a little bit more consistently, by usually about 10%, but I don't know why. That's industry-wide. I don't know if Facebook does better or not, but I have no reason to think so. Even…

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.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#268

Post by nailer »

deaps wrote: post #266

I find the title a bit misleading - more so puts the blame in the 'wrong' place. Let me explain briefly. Facebook allows advertisers to pay a rate per advertisement displayed. Why shouldn't Facebook 'let' their paying customers show the ads to those they are interested in. AKA why would they pay Facebook to show their ad to people they are not interested in? That being said - I've followed most of the discussion...an…

> 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.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#269

Post by GhostVII »

It's interesting that the headline and article seems to be focused on the advertisers targeting ads towards men when there were also instances where the ads were targetted towards only women. Shouldn't those both be equally wrong?

And I don't see anything inherently wrong with targeted towards a specific gender so long as that targeted is compensated for elsewhere in your recruiting strategy. Lots of magazines are read by more people of one sex than the other, so if you are recruiting in those magazines, I think it can make sense to make up the difference by using Facebook.

Post reply on HN