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Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

propublica.org

351–360 of 407 posts

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#351
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…

> 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

But that wouldn't get the clicks that propublica wants. Add facebook to the title and you get X more clicks.

Also, most jobs aren't even advertised. Especially the good jobs, like those at propublica. Seems like a none story to me but the problem is that the news has to make news to make money. Yes, even nonprofits have to make money.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, after decades of things like redlining, I'm ok with the industry trying hard not to discriminate.

While I agree, I was just shocked by the amount of legal stuff around realtors that basically keeps them from being able to be helpful. It has a huge effect on the perception of the profession because people are forbidden from really distinguishing themselves out of fear that a wrong word can get them sued (not just for equal housing but tons of other stuff).

I suppose we're fortunate that almost all of the information we want is on the web now. The age when it wasn't on the web was really terrible.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#353
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad buyers are very sophisticated spenders and know the score. If they don't, they're going to get their money taken anyway and a lot more savagely than a mistargeted campaign hinged on gender. I really have to drive this point home. Selecting gender as a target on Facebook isn't actually selecting gender and everybody involved knows it. It's a much simpler way to describe a much more complex set of decisions.

What's confusing me here is that this is what you seem to be saying is happening: 1. Facebook knows my gender. 2. Facebook tell advertisers they will select/not select me based on my gender. 3. Facebook, despite knowing my gender , completely disregard that information and try and guess it with exceptionally poor results.

I was speaking more about the industry as a whole originally. Facebook knows what you report as your gender but that's not a very good attribute to target off of. If I were doing e-commerce, for example, I would never use Facebook's implementation of that target (if they're going based off of what's reported to Facebook) because it would completely exclude gift purchases across genders. It would leave a ton of money on the table and be a very stupid thing to do.

My entire argument is that splitting hairs over this is irrelevant because any advertisers who rely on the accuracy of that attribute are stupid and pissing money away to begin with.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#354

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.

That's not really how digital advertising targeting works though. In fact, they go to great lengths to make sure you illegally exclude by a class (Google is especially strict about this) and don't transmit anything that is considered PII or "potentially PII". Gender, like IP address, is in the potentially PII realm. What this actually is going to do is target "people interested in typically male interests". That is g…

In the same vein, redlining wasn't targeting racial minorities per se, it was just targeting things that correlated with it highly. Under current civil rights legislation that is still highly illegal; gender-ish policy is still an explicit policy considering gendered things.

> "A recipient’s express or admitted use of a classification based on race, color, or national origin establishes intent without regard to the decision-makers’ animus or ultimate objective. Such classifications demonstrate a discriminatory purpose as a matter of law. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 904–05 (1995); see also Wittmer v. Peters, 904 F. Supp. 845, 849–50 (C.D. Ill. 1995), aff’d, 87 F.3d 916 (7th Cir. 1996). “Put another way, direct evidence of intent is ‘supplied by the policy itself.’” Hassan v. City of New York, 804 F.3d. 277, 295 (3d Cir. 2015) (quoting Massarsky v. Gen. Motors Corp., 706 F.2d 111, 128 (3d Cir.1983) (Sloviter, J., dissenting)).

Where a plaintiff demonstrates, or an agency determines, that a challenged policy overtly and expressly singles out a protected group for disparate treatment, “a plaintiff need not prove the malice or discriminatory animus of a defendant ….” Bangerter v. Orem City Corp., 46 F.3d 1491, 1501 (10th Cir. 1995); see also Ferrill v. Parker Grp., Inc., 168 F.3d 468, 473 n.7 (11th Cir. 1999) (“[I]ll will, enmity, or hostility are not prerequisites of intentional discrimination.”). Rather, the focus is on the “explicit terms of the discrimination,” Int’l Union, United Auto. Aerospace & Agric. Implement Workers of Am. v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U.S. 187, 199 (1991); that is, how the recipient’s actions specifically deprived or otherwise adversely affected the individual or individuals of access to a federally funded program or benefit. Even benign motivations for racial classifications are presumptively invalid and trigger strict scrutiny in Equal Protection Clause and Title VI cases. Adarand, 515 U.S. at 223–24 (1995); Grutter, 539 U.S. at 326" [1]

[1] - https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/T6Manual6#DD

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#355
post #75
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting Facebook do that helpfully to aide their customers in avoiding mishaps? Or are you prescribing this be government ordained & required?

Old school newspapers would refuse to run ads that broke employment laws. And I've never heard of them bellyaching about policing that. But Facebook is somehow how different? Why? Oh right their business model doesn't work if they have to pay the costs associated with following government regulations. I'm not feeling sympathetic.

I'm not saying facebook shouldn't police their listings. But were old school newspapers legally required to do that?

I'm asking, are we wanting facebook to do it because it's ethical? Or are we wanting to legally require them to?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#356
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I was thinking about that as I wrote, one imperfect but possible fix would be "no pay per view for job listings". Which, for all I know, could already be the case.

The ads would still be illegal even if they weren't pay per view.

If they aren't pay per view, there's much less incentive to show them to only certain users, and much less burden on the employer to be inclusive.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#357
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…

The problem is that you have to determine the employer’s intent, which is hard.

Intent is nine tenths of the law.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#358
post #203
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 run a tech company and wanted to target "people you are into the Python programming language", that's a group that will likely skew male...

"Yeah, um, we want programmers and I thought targeting people into Python was reasonable." That does sound reasonable. It's not meant as a proxy for gender, but for an interest/skill that is closely related to the job

Ok, I'm not deeply informed on Disparate Impact, but as you just described it, as intent doesn't matter, if your "job listing targeting Python developers" skews male and doesn't pass the 80% test, you're still discriminating & liable right?

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be validating men-only advertising by implying that hiring women is done for no other reason than charity. If a company wants to cut itself at the knees by courting half the market ... let them.

How did they imply that hiring women is charity?

Nobody would even think to complain if the implication behind this post was that the company was self-sabotaging itself.

To briefly speak of ethical and legal issues, it is highly doubtful that they would have a policy of not hiring women if women actually apply for the position (and that would most certainly be illegal). Much more likely is that whoever ran the Facebook campaign checked off that option in an dumb attempt at controlling ad campaign costs? Or maybe they ran a separate campaign to recruit women? Or maybe some other non-nefarious reason.

Re: Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In relation to your last question: in many countries (not sure about the US) jobs like au pair, house maid, babysitter, caretaker, are explicitly exempted from nondiscrimination rules.

Why are they exempted?
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