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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

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

Pretty sure it does already :)

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

No? How does that follow?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

You can segment product advertising, but not housing or jobs or any other categories where there are 'protected classes' (US)

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

I imagine they make up a fair proportion of the customer base.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is excluded though. A woman can buy Men's Health ; a man can buy Cosmopolitan . What Facebook is doing is enabling straight up exclusion of genders from advertising, which is completely different in the eyes of the law.

So Victoria's secret should be forced to advertise to men too?

Men buy lingerie.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#36
post #9

This is unambiguously illegal and Facebook could stop doing this anytime it wants. Craigslist reminds its users about anti-discrimination laws before they post and provides a means for users to flag illegal ads.

Right now the targeting information for an ad is not disclosed to the recipient, so it's not possible for an end user to know if a given ad is illegal or not unless there's discriminatory information directly in the copy, which is pretty rare.

If you click the three dots on the top right of an ad in the newsfeed, you should be able to press 'Why am I seeing this' to see an explanation of the targeting for an ad. I can see one on my newsfeed that says:

> One reason you're seeing this ad is that Castore Sportswear wants to reach people who have visited their website or used one of their apps. This is based on customer information provided by Castore Sportswear.

> There may be other reasons you're seeing this ad, including that Castore Sportswear wants to reach people ages 18 and older who live in the United Kingdom. This is information based on your Facebook profile and where you've connected to the internet.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#37

Blaming Facebook muddies the water a bit. Ultimately the companies advertising on Facebook broke the law when they checked the wrong boxes. Facebook should; however, make that information public knowledge by allowing the public to see the advertising parameters of any given ad if they are curious but to my knowledge, no law requires it. Maybe it's time to start having a conversation about the need advertising transpa…

Facebook should make it much harder to use their product illegally. They can hide protected demographic filters when ads are of a protected nature, like jobs or housing.

This concept of law enforcement is a really slippery slope, trying to force companies to stop people from breaking the law, is a serious shift in the concept of freedom.

prohibit acts are allowed, and they are dealt with by punishing the wrong doers.

Turning a company's automated system into a judge of legal and illegal action just seems like a bad idea in the long run.

Though, it is seemingly a growing trend, I don't feel it will result in a improved world in the end.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#38

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…

It's interesting to think about. If I'm looking for someone to ride on a garbage truck, there's probably a 95% chance the future employee will be male, but acting on this expectation, by advertising to men instead of women - getting more employees per dollar spent, is sexist. Likewise, if I needed to hire an au pair I'd have to advertise to men and women equally?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#39
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…

Yes, it would be very different. For example, the two things you listed are probably rather bad proxies for gender (even if it's only hypothetical). All they had to do was pick the niche they're going for (which may incidentally turn out to be highly skewed to one gender) rather than making it 100% one gender. I honestly don't even understand the purpose of advertising anything to only men or only women. (The obvious…

Well, there are many gender specific products there, for example female hygiene products. Doesn't mean the opposite sex will straightly not buy them (Yes, they do, https://mashable.com/2018/01/28/amazon-go-tampons-pads-tech-...), but it is safe to assume that they are probably not interested (Look at the previous link and there is actually an outrage because of it.).

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#40
post #27
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…

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.

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