Wednesday briefing: Facebook allows job ads to illegally discriminate by gender and age

Wednesday briefing: Facebook allows job ads to illegally discriminate by gender and age

Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty ImageYour WIRED daily briefing. Today, Facebook allows companies to only show job ads to young men, Tesla faces criminal investigation over Musk's private buyout tweets, Twitter has reintroduced its chronological timeline and more. Sign up hereAdvertisementA ProPublica investigation has found that Facebook is making it easy for companies to target job ads so that they are only seen by a specific gender or age group. Over the past year, one inbox received 97 emails from 55 different fraudulent essay writing services. Freedom of information requests submitted to every UK university show that since September 2017 a total of 528,000 emails from 55 email addresses associated with essay writing services had been delivered to inboxes they control.

ACLU: Facebook allows gender-biased job ads on its platform

not to mention This undated image provided by the American Civil Liberties Union shows a Facebook advertisement for jobs at the the City of Greensboro's police department. The ad placed by the city was targeted to "men ages 25 to 35 who live or were recently near Philadelphia." Such targeting information is available to Facebook users when they click on "why am I seeing this" on a drop-down menu on the ad. The ACLU accused Facebook of discrimination, saying the company violated federal and state laws prohibiting businesses from excluding women from job ads. In a complaint filed Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, the ACLU also lists 10 employers that it claims have placed discriminatory ads including the Greensboro ad. (American Civil Liberties Union via AP)

Women accuse Facebook of illegally posting job ads that only men can see

Facebook's business model is under scrutiny again for its alleged role in perpetuating job discrimination. The businesses reportedly bought ads on Facebook to publicize job openings, but targeted them so that no women who use the platform could see them. But user groups argue that Facebook ads are not third-party content because the company developed the micro-targeting ad technology. In the complaint filed Tuesday, lawyers showed how the company's ad-building tool let businesses exclude women from seeing job posts. Lawyers collected similar job ads posted on Facebook between October 2017 and August 2018, and they filed the complaint on behalf of all women Facebook users who were looking for jobs at the time.

Wednesday briefing: Facebook allows job ads to illegally discriminate by gender and age

Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty ImageYour WIRED daily briefing. Today, Facebook allows companies to only show job ads to young men, Tesla faces criminal investigation over Musk's private buyout tweets, Twitter has reintroduced its chronological timeline and more. Sign up hereAdvertisementA ProPublica investigation has found that Facebook is making it easy for companies to target job ads so that they are only seen by a specific gender or age group. Over the past year, one inbox received 97 emails from 55 different fraudulent essay writing services. Freedom of information requests submitted to every UK university show that since September 2017 a total of 528,000 emails from 55 email addresses associated with essay writing services had been delivered to inboxes they control.

Women accuse Facebook of illegally posting job ads that only men can see

as mentioned in This undated image provided by the American Civil Liberties Union shows a Facebook advertisement for jobs at the the City of Greensboro's police department. The ad placed by the city was targeted to "men ages 25 to 35 who live or were recently near Philadelphia." Such targeting information is available to Facebook users when they click on "why am I seeing this" on a drop-down menu on the ad. The ACLU accused Facebook of discrimination, saying the company violated federal and state laws prohibiting businesses from excluding women from job ads. In a complaint filed Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, the ACLU also lists 10 employers that it claims have placed discriminatory ads including the Greensboro ad. (American Civil Liberties Union via AP)

ACLU: Facebook allows gender-biased job ads on its platform

Facebook's business model is under scrutiny again for its alleged role in perpetuating job discrimination. The businesses reportedly bought ads on Facebook to publicize job openings, but targeted them so that no women who use the platform could see them. But user groups argue that Facebook ads are not third-party content because the company developed the micro-targeting ad technology. In the complaint filed Tuesday, lawyers showed how the company's ad-building tool let businesses exclude women from seeing job posts. Lawyers collected similar job ads posted on Facebook between October 2017 and August 2018, and they filed the complaint on behalf of all women Facebook users who were looking for jobs at the time.