Sep 19, 2018
Facebook job ads 'discriminated by gender'
At least, that's what a cluster of job ads placed on Facebook seemed to suggest. The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday submitted a complaint to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Facebook's advertising system allows employers to target job ads based on gender - a practice the ACLU says is illegal. The complaint highlights 10 different employers who posted job adverts on Facebook - for roles such as mechanic, roofer and security engineer - but used the social network's targeting system to control who saw the ad. In one example, that targeting meant one job was promoted to "Men" who were "Ages 25 to 35", and lived "Or were recently near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania". While targeting users based on gender may seem relatively harmless when it comes to clothing brands, doing so for job advertisements may be against US law. "What's more, clicking on the Facebook ads brought viewers to a page listing numerous other job opportunities at these companies for which job seekers might be qualified."
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