ACLU Files Charges Against Facebook for Enabling Advertisers to Target Only Young Men for Jobs

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> https://gizmodo.com/aclu-files-charges-against-facebook-for-enabling-advert-1829137692 
> <https://gizmodo.com/aclu-files-charges-against-facebook-for-enabling-advert-1829137692>
>
> ACLU Files Charges Against Facebook for Enabling Advertisers to Target Only Young Men for Jobs
>
> Melanie Ehrenkranz <//kinja.com/melaniehannah>
>
> Photo: Getty
> On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed charges 
> <https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/how-facebook-giving-sex-discrimination-employment-ads-new>
>  with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Facebook and 10 other companies over alleged age and gender 
> discrimination in targeted employment ads.
>
> Facebook has repeatedly 
> <https://gizmodo.com/facebook-swears-to-end-housing-discrimination-on-its-ad-1827859039#_ga=2.85598745.1405946576.1537208491-1778202016.1536932145>
>  been called out for enabling advertisers to exclude certain groups of people from seeing certain types of ads, such 
> as for housing and employment, on its platform. The social network recently said it’s taking steps 
> <https://gizmodo.com/facebook-is-scrapping-thousands-of-targeting-options-th-1828499195#_ga=2.39455267.1405946576.1537208491-1778202016.1536932145>
>  to prevent these inequitable practices, but not everyone is satisfied with its clean-up job. The charges allege that 
> Facebook has enabled at least 10 companies to display ads for jobs in male-dominated fields only to young males, 
> according to a statement from the ACLU 
> <https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace/how-facebook-giving-sex-discrimination-employment-ads-new>.
>  The organization filed the charges with the Communications Workers of America and employment law firm Outten & 
> Golden.
>
> The ACLU notes that when someone wants to start a Facebook account, they have to identify their gender, and at first 
> Facebook affords them only the options of male and female. They can change their gender option from a list of dozens 
> once they’ve opened an account, but the original choice can allegedly still be served up to advertisers.
>
> “The only difference between Facebook’s ad targeting practice and the sex-segregated classified ads of yore is that 
> Facebook — unlike newspapers, which are distributed to the general public — can actually ensure that specific ads are 
> only delivered to its male or female users, or to users of a specific age range, according to the advertisers’ 
> selection,” the ACLU wrote in a statement.
>
>
> The ACLU also called attention to Facebook’s “Lookalike Targeting” option for advertisers. According to a page in 
> Facebook’s Advertising Help Center <https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531>, advertisers can create a 
> Lookalike Audience in which Facebook identifies “the common qualities of the people” in a selected custom audience. 
> “Then we find people who are similar to (or ‘look like’) them,” Facebook states. It’s not hard to imagine how this 
> type of tool could be used for more nefarious purposes. “To understand why this is problematic in the employment 
> context, consider a company with an all-white workforce, which decided to recruit and hire only applicants that ‘look 
> like’ their current workforce,” the ACLU states.
>
> The charges filed Tuesday aim to prevent advertisers from having the tools and information needed to exclude women 
> and non-binary individuals, as well as individuals in a higher age bracket, from having access to certain job 
> opportunities. Aside from just making it more difficult for certain demographics to find these jobs, such tools can 
> help maintain the homogeneity of already male-dominated fields, the ACLU argues.
>
> This is hardly the first time Facebook has been accused of abetting discrimination on its ad platform. The U.S. 
> Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a discrimination complaint 
> <https://gizmodo.com/hud-makes-it-official-files-complaint-alleging-faceboo-1828441291> against the tech giant in 
> August after ProPublica discovered 
> <https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers-exclude-users-by-race> two years prior that advertisers 
> could exclude users based on race and disability. The social network pledged to fix the issue, only to be caught 
> <https://gizmodo.com/facebook-still-lets-landlords-discriminate-by-race-and-1820650849#_ga=2.51440297.1405946576.1537208491-1778202016.1536932145>
>  enabling discriminatory practices again through its targeted ads.
>
> In response to its litany of screwups, Facebook announced in August 
> <https://gizmodo.com/facebook-is-scrapping-thousands-of-targeting-options-th-1828499195> that it was removing 
> thousands “targeting options” in order to really, truly, for real this time, stop discrimination on its platform. 
> According to the charges the ACLU filed on Tuesday, Facebook still has work to do.
>
> [BuzzFeed <https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/aclu-is-charging-facebook-with-gender-discrimination-ad>]



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