Facebook reportedly allowed Uber to target men with job ads

Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a tech and media conference in Sun Valley,
Idaho.
Getty
Images

• Facebook faces discrimination lawsuits for allegedly
  allowing employers to target job ads at a single
  gender.
• Civil rights organisation the ACLU filed a complaint
  against Facebook claiming that 10 employers had targeted job
  ads only to men.
• Simultaneously, a ProPublica investigation found Uber
  had targeted job ads for drivers predominantly at men.
• Facebook said it is reviewing the complaint.

Facebook is in hot water amid accusations that it allowed
employers to target men with job ads.

The ACLU, the US civil rights organisation, filed a complaint
against Facebook on Tuesday with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which could be the first step to a lawsuit.

In its complaint, the ACLU claimed the social network had allowed
10 firms to advertise jobs to positions at male-dominated fields
“to younger male Facebook users only, excluding all women and
non-binary individuals, as well as older male users.”

The organisation is bringing its suit on behalf of three unnamed
job seekers and tech union, the Communications Workers of
America, with an eye to widening it to a class-action suit on
behalf of millions of workers.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating
on the basis of gender, race, age, colour, or religion.

The ACLU wrote in a blogpost: “Enabled by social media
platforms like Facebook, advertisers are increasingly using
users’ personal data to direct their ads — including for jobs —
to individual users based on characteristics such as sex, race,
and age, thus excluding users outside of the selected groups from
learning about these opportunities.”

Facebook said on Tuesday that it was reviewing the complaint.
Business Insider has contacted the company for comment.

A ProPublica investigation, published Tuesday, gave further
detail about the alleged job ads.

It found that Uber had targeted ads for driver positions
specifically at men across more than 12 US cities. The
publication conducted a survey of 91 Uber ads, and found that
only three didn’t target a specific sex. ProPublica gathers
information on Facebook ads through a browser plugin that readers
can install.

Uber’s Drive with Uber page on Facebook reportedly
targeted ads only to men.
Facebook/Uber

An Uber spokesperson told the publication: “Driving with Uber is
not typical 9 to 5 work, and the platform is available to anyone
who is qualified — regardless of gender.

“We use a variety of channels to reach prospective drivers — both
offline and online — with the goal of enabling more people, not
fewer, to earn on their own schedule.”

The publication also found Pennsylvania State Police boosted an
ad targeted to men that featured enticing salary details, while a
truck company specifically targeted men who were interested in
college football.

Not all the ads were just targeted at men. A health centre,
meanwhile, limited ads for nurses and medical assistants to
women.