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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

#291

Post by maccard »

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…

> why would I not choose the most effective form of advertising for me?

To put a slightly different spin on things, in the US young black men are more likely to be perpratrators of crime[0], so should police spend more time investigating young black men over other demographics?

[0] whether this is due to racial prejudice or other systemic matters doesn't matter.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#292

Post by drewbuschhorn »

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.

It really doesn't, https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/canadian-lawmakers-p... if you want primary and secondary sources.

Basically it just says you can't actively discriminate against someone because of gender identity. Which had been the defacto law for a long time.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#294

Post by weberc2 »

detaro wrote: post #40
gascan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems wrong to allow companies to escape legal rules by choosing to advertise in ways that have badly-fitting payment model. The multiple ads question is interesting though, and might very well be a valid defense, since they then are advertising to both.

I’m very skeptical that their motive is hiring discrimination as opposed to cutting costs on ads by targeting the demographic that is most likely to respond to the ad campaign. In other words, if the ad campaign isn’t successful for recruiting women, why would they spend twice as much for no increase in ROI? Maybe they could run a different campaign that targets women, and perhaps they are (if there is something in the article that claimed these employers are only running campaigns that target men, I missed it), or perhaps no one has found a campaign that is comparably cost-effective for hiring women as is the case in STEM fields. I just don’t see what these firms would stand to gain from hiring discrimination and I have a hard time believing they would take a significant financial hit just to be grinches.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#295

Post by wruza »

dao- wrote: post #265
wruza wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, I thought that you’re faking your interests and posts, but it’s just a gender setting.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#296

Post by mreome »

pteredactyl wrote: post #96
mreome wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that under the law, you as an employer are not allowed to make a hiring related choice that in any way discriminates against a protected class (with some exceptions discussed on other comments). You might expect to only get applications from men, but legally you can not target men specifically. The inclusion of 'women and people of color strongly encouraged to apply' is actually walking a fine legal line…

Which law is that specifically? And, as a business owner, please tell me why it would not be in my best interest to hire the best person for the job?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, which was codified as Subchapter VI of Chapter 21 of title 42 of the United States Code, and was later extended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

It is in your best interest to hire the best person for the job, but if you determine who is "best" based on inclusion or exclusion from a protected class then you are illegally discriminating (except for in some specific cases such as the sex and race of actors, and where disabilities can not be reasonably accommodated for).

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#297

Post by philipodonnell »

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…

> If I create a Facebook ad for a job application with no other promotion of the opening (including on my company's website) and target it just to men, is that discriminatory?

You make a lot of interesting points and its a difficult problem, for sure, but I think this is a bit of a straw man. Even for company that explicitly intended to discriminate by hiring only men for a position could avoid the vast majority of what you wrote here by posting the position on their company jobs website and just only seriously considering applicants with male names. Trivial, even.

Its also possible that a company could be using gender targeting in advertising specifically to _mitigate_ the tendency for certain roles to have gender-skewed candidates, by targeting women on Facebook for python roles because their applicants through the passive/non-targeted listing sites skew male as an example.

I can't say one way or the other if that's what Uber did, but its impossible to look at the activity on one platform and somehow extrapolate that to the entire company's hiring strategy.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#298

Post by bagacrap »

scarface74 wrote: post #282
cbovis wrote: post #101

On the fence about this one. Whilst targeting individual groups can certainly lead to inequalities there is the problem of tailoring ads to an audience. One way a company may wish to make their ads more appealing is by showing relatable people in adverts. If a company is running two variations of the same job advert, one featuring women and one featuring men, distributing coverage across the two variations evenly, th…

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?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#299

Post by mbrumlow »

Meph504 wrote: post #29

(from another thread very similar to this) I really don't see how the companies placing the ads, aren't going to get hammered for it. But Facebook is doing nothing illegal, unless the ads, were placed for jobs with Facebook. Just as newspaper/radio/tv aren't required not to post job adverts that violate the EEOC's rules. For clarity, According to the EEOC ( https://www1.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/index.cfm?renderforprin…

> For example, an employer's reliance on word-of-mouth recruitment by its mostly Hispanic work force may violate the law if the result is that almost all new hires are Hispanic.

I think the key here is may. Nothing I have read seems to indicate that targeting men only violates the EEOC rules. The rule only seems to be if the result is almost all new hires are X.

What if we had a good pool of men working, and the company was a perfect example of diversity but found that it lacked women needed for a spot to keep their 50/50 ratio. Now let's say they had a lot of qualified men candidates already lined up. Why should the be forced to put ads out for men they know they won't hire because the next 5 hires are going to be women to keep their diversity ratio?

Side note (off topic), I was unaware of the EEOC rules on this sort of thing and am a bit shocked knowing that on HN and various places on the internet I have seen people promoting jobs that flat out say "POC or Woman applicants will only be considered". It Think Evergreen and UCLA recently had job postings with this type of wording recently. How is that not a EOC violation?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#300

Post by furgooswft13 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #220
Endy wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you allow an unlawful ad to exist on your platform, you are knowingly violating the law and should be punished.

So if I were to say, "Hey guys, you can get two ounces of pure, uncut cocaine right here, right now... Just send me cash via PayPal and I'll post it to you today!" and no HN moderator removes this comment, then I have posted an unlawful advertisement on HN. By your standing, the operators are now violating the law as soon as a moderator glances across this shitpost, and would require punishment. While that's clearly…

If you said "Hey guys & gals" it would be okay.
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