facebook: Facebook’s misrepresented audience for job postings sparks new complaint

Meta Platforms Inc. Illegally directed dozens of job ads from trucking companies and other advertisers to mostly one gender or age group, the advocacy group for women truckers alleges in a U.S. complaint Thursday, citing the social media giant’s own data.

In June, Meta said it plans to introduce a “dispersion reduction system” into its algorithms to ensure housing and employment ads reach different audiences in terms of age and gender.

The new accusations highlight the challenges that the planned Meta system will face. Meta on Thursday said it was looking into the complaint and did not provide immediate comment on it or the status of the planned changes.

facebook is one of the main resources for these life opportunities – the consequences of this kind of discrimination are far-reaching,” said Mitra Ebadolahi, Senior Director of Project Upturn, an advocacy group representing Real Women in Trucking on behalf of Equal. Employment Opportunity Commission. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been criticized for years by civil rights groups and regulators over how its settings and algorithms allow for bias in access to job listings and housing. US law prohibits gender or age discrimination in such advertising.

The Real Women in Trucking complaint lists about 80 ads from the Meta public archive that show a distorted audience.

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In one example, an employer looking for truck drivers in North Carolina reached an audience of 5% female and 11% aged 55 or older.

“Women make up 54% of people on Facebook interested in job hunting. People aged 55 and over – 28%,” said Peter Romer-Friedman, director of Gupta Wessler law firm representing Real Women in Trucking.

“There’s no reason for this job advertisements should be regularly sent to some of these numbers,” he said.

He added that most employers intend to reach a wider audience.

But the indictment cites three ads for which Meta allowed advertisers to select an age-restricted audience, an option that was promised to be blocked for job postings in 2019.

If Meta tries to identify job postings, Romer-Friedman said it may also have difficulty applying planned variance reductions.

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