CUs Could Learn From Facebook Discrimination Complaint
ACLU claims Facebook allows employers to discriminate in posting job ads.
On Sept. 18, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Communications Workers of America filed EEOC complaints against Facebook and 10 employers over claims the social media giant helps employers limit women, non-binary users and older workers from seeing Facebook advertisements for job openings.
The ACLU and CWA alleged that the companies used Facebook to discriminate by choosing to target some or all of their job ads to men or people in certain age groups.
No credit unions were on the list. But Kimberly Jones, who is owner/operator at KNJ HR Solutions in Dallas, said is important for credit unions and other employers to understand how companies such as Facebook use technology to target potential job-seekers. The complaints are also an example of how technology and human resource functions continue to merge but still have far to go when it comes to understanding and applying basic employment law principles, she noted.
According to the complaint against Facebook, the issue for employers appears to begin during the ad-buying process.
“For each ad that an advertiser purchases on Facebook and that Facebook, in turn, sends to Facebook users, there are three mandatory filters that the advertiser is required to select in setting the population who will be eligible to receive the ad: (1) location; (2) age; and (3) gender,” the complaint against Facebook alleged.
“Facebook enables, encourages, and assists employers to target advertisements and recruitment based on the user’s gender, by allowing advertisers to select either ‘All,’ ‘Male,’ or ‘Female’ users to receive the ad,” it claimed. “Once the employer limits its target audience for a job advertisement based on the gender of the users it wants to reach, Facebook then effectuates the employer’s gender-based targeting preferences by delivering the ads only to users who identify as the selected gender, using the gender assigned to or selected by the user to target ads on the basis of sex, while excluding all other users from receiving the ad.”
The ACLU and CWA also claimed Facebook’s “Lookalike Audience” tool could create lists of Facebook users who are demographically similar to an organization’s existing workers, thereby using gender-based information to determine who could see job ads.
In addition, the complaints took issue with the social media platform’s “Detailed Targeting” feature, which allows advertisers to select from a list of user categories.
“Many of the options provided reflect gender stereotypes (e.g., by providing the option to choose ‘Working Moms’ and not ‘Working Dads’),” the ACLU said.
The complaint against Facebook did acknowledge that the platform warns advertisers not to discriminate.
“Although Facebook currently has a page that tells advertisers that ‘[a]ds must not discriminate or encourage discrimination against people based on personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, medical or genetic condition,’ Facebook has long known that employers and employment agencies were using its platform to discriminate on the basis of gender, and encouraged that behavior, rather than eliminating it,” it said.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
“Employers should ask questions of companies such as Facebook and LinkedIn prior to posting jobs on their sites to ensure that they are reaching all demographics and technology is not being used to decide who should or should not receive information regarding positions that are posted,” Jones said. “The same employment law principles practiced within your organization should also be applied to any third-party resources used in your employment practices.”