Highlights:
- Women are excluded from seeing some job listings ‘beyond what can be legally justified’.
- Facebook’s ad delivery can result in skew of job ad delivery by gender.
- The team of researchers bought ads on Facebook for delivery driver job listings.
- Federal law prohibits discrimination based on gender, race, age and other traits.
Facebook Inc. disproportionately shows certain types of job ads to men and women, researchers have found, calling into question the company’s progress in rooting out bias in its algorithms.
The study led by University of Southern California researchers found that Facebook systems were more likely to present job ads to users if their gender identity reflected the concentration of that gender in a particular position or industry.
In tests run late last year, ads to recruit delivery drivers for Domino’s Pizza Inc. were disproportionately shown to men, while women were more likely to receive notices in recruiting shoppers for grocery-delivery service Instacart Inc.
The imbalance applied to postings for high-skill jobs as well, the study found. Facebook’s algorithms were more likely to show a woman an ad for a technical job at Netflix Inc. which has a relatively high level of female employment for the tech industry—than an ad for a job at Nvidia Corp. , a graphics-chip maker with a higher proportion of male employees, based on data from federal employment reports.
Federal law prohibits discrimination based on gender, race, age.
Federal law prohibits discrimination based on gender, race, age and other traits in advertising for housing, employment and credit products.
While the law’s application to behavioral advertising remains contentious, the federal government argues that ads distribution is in ways that don’t disadvantage elite classes of people’s ability to see them.
Platform whose algorithm learns and perpetuates the existing difference in employee demographics.” The paper says, noting that Facebook’s algorithms appeared to produce skewed outcomes. This is true even if an employer intends to reach a demographically balanced audience.
Research has found Facebook’s Ad targeting system to be discriminating against some users.
Two other pairs of similar job listings the researchers test on Facebook reveal similar findings – a listing for a software engineer at Nvidia. Another was a job for a car salesperson display to more men. Also, a Netflix software engineer job. In addition to this, jewelry sales associate listing show up to more women.
That means the algorithm figures out each job’s current demographic. It seems like how it targets the ads is not clear. The reason behind this is that Facebook is silent about how its ad delivery works.
This isn’t the first time research has found Facebook’s ad targeting system to be discriminating against some users, however. A 2016 investigation by ProPublica says that Facebook’s “ethnic affinities” tool are useful. They exclude Black or Hispanic users from seeing specific ads.
If such ads were for housing or job opportunities, the targeting could have been considered in violation of federal law. Facebook’s response was that it would bolster its anti-discrimination efforts. But a second ProPublica report in 2017 had the same problems.
