Facebook, Amazon, and hundreds of companies post targeted job ads that screen out older workers

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

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: May 31, 2018 at 09:29:40 EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Facebook, Amazon, and hundreds of companies post targeted job ads that screen out older workers
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Facebook, Amazon, and hundreds of companies post targeted job ads that screen out older workers
> Facebook users are suing them for age discrimination.
> By Alexia Fernández Campbell
> May 31 2018
> <https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/31/17408884/facebook-amazon-job-ads-age-discrimination-lawsuit>
>
> Older workers are accusing Facebook, Ikea, and hundreds of other companies for discriminating against job seekers in 
> their 50s and 60s through targeted job ads posted on Facebook.
>
> The Communications Workers of America, a labor union representing 700,000 media workers across the country, added the 
> companies to a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday, which was filed in California federal court in December. In its 
> original complaint, the labor union accused Amazon, T-Mobile, and Cox Media Group of doing the same thing.
>
> The case, Bradley v. T-Mobile, has major implications for US employers, who routinely buy job ads on Facebook to 
> reach users. The plaintiffs argue that Amazon, T-Mobile, Ikea, Facebook, and hundreds of other companies target the 
> ads so they are only seen by younger Facebook users. 
>
> The lawsuit revolves around Facebook’s unique business model, which lets advertisers micro-target the network’s users 
> based on their interests, city, age, and other demographic information. In the past, equal rights advocates have 
> suedFacebook for accepting ads that discriminate against consumers based on their religion, race, and gender. 
>
> Facebook has argued that the company is not legally responsible when other companies buy ads that violate the law. 
> But in a new filing, the CWA has now added Facebook to its complaint as one of the companies accused of violating 
> civil rights laws by targeting its own job ads to younger users.
>
> Here is one ad Facebook posted, submitted by the plaintiffs, inviting users to a career fair with Facebook 
> recruiters. The ads were visible only to users between the ages of 21 to 55:
>
> Facebook has denied that these kinds of ads are a form of age discrimination. Rob Goldman, Facebook’s VP of ads, 
> compared it to posting job ads in magazines geared for young audiences, which the courts have said isn’t inherently a 
> form of age discrimination as long as the company is also posting job ads in media outlets with older audiences or 
> making other recruitment efforts.
>
> “What matters is that marketing is broadly based and inclusive, not simply focused on a particular age group. In 
> addition, certain employers want to attract retirees or recruit for jobs with specific age restrictions like the 
> military or airline pilots,” Goldman wrote in December in response to the original lawsuit and to the ProPublica and 
> the New York Times’s investigation that described the widespread practice. 
>
> Facebook came under fire in 2016 when a separate ProPublica investigation showed that companies could buy ads that 
> screened out users based on their race, which is potentially illegal in the context of housing and employment 
> advertising. Facebook announced in February 2017 that it had developed a new system to flag and reject certain ads 
> that screened users based on “ethnic affinity,” but the network still lets advertisers filter out characteristics 
> linked to other protected groups: women, people with disabilities, and religious minorities.
>
> In the age discrimination case, plaintiffs want the court to order these companies, including Facebook itself, to 
> stop posting job ads that filter out older workers. They argue that it’s a violation of the Age Discrimination in 
> Employment Act of 1967, which makes it illegal to discriminate against workers over the age of 40 inemployment 
> advertising, recruiting, hiring, and other employment opportunities.
>
> Here are a few other ads the plaintiffs submitted as evidence:
>
> [snip]
>
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