Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook To Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads (propublica.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Verizon is among dozens of the nation's leading employers -- including Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Target and Facebook itself -- that placed recruitment ads limited to particular age groups, an investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times has found. The ability of advertisers to deliver their message to the precise audience most likely to respond is the cornerstone of Facebook's business model. But using the system to expose job opportunities only to certain age groups has raised concerns about fairness to older workers. Several experts questioned whether the practice is in keeping with the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which prohibits bias against people 40 or older in hiring or employment. Many jurisdictions make it a crime to "aid" or "abet" age discrimination, a provision that could apply to companies like Facebook that distribute job ads.

Facebook defended the practice. "Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work," said Rob Goldman, a Facebook vice president. The revelations come at a time when the unregulated power of the tech companies is under increased scrutiny, and Congress is weighing whether to limit the immunity that it granted to tech companies in 1996 for third-party content on their platforms.

Comments

There is a fine line here

[Q-Hack!]

Age based ads targeting comic books to teenagers, ok. Age based ads targeting IT jobs to Millennials but excluding people aged 40 is a problem.

Re:There is a fine line here

[olsmeister]

OK. How about instead we target IT jobs to people who read comic books? - Your friendly neighborhood HR department

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. How about instead we target IT jobs to people who read comic books? - Your friendly neighborhood HR department

You'd get a lot of good IT geeks respond.
The difference is here, anyone can CHOOSE to read a certain comic book or industry magazine.
You don't get to choose your age, despite what the cosmetics industry would have you think

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Age based ads targeting comic books to teenagers, ok. Age based ads targeting IT jobs to Millennials but excluding people aged 40 is a problem.

If Facebook is helping exclude older workers from job offers then they should be hit with the full weight of the law. I don't care if it destroys them. I half think the world would be better off without that mess anyway. We certainly would. Without Facebook, Russia would have lacked a tool to help Von Clownstick get elected. People's private lives should be private, not posted on the Internet. I'd greatly prefer that such sites die and _NOT_ be resurrected with a new name.

That all being said, we do have guaranteed Freedoms including the freedom to be stupid, so the correct thing is just to apply the law and see where it goes. In the very unlikely event Facebook were to die, something likely even more evil will no doubt sprout up to replace it. People really need to remember or learn how important that right to privacy is that is implied in the constitution though and defend it, not give it away.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on there, I identify as a mid 20s rockstar software engineer.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that was the purpose of Friday night beer and pizza bashes with foosball.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

These aren't job offers, they're ads. Usually for shit positions at the bottom of the food chain.

Re:There is a fine line here

[hey!]

True, but it still doesn't do you any good to apply to a job where they'll look at your resume and discard it because you have too much experience. Or if you trim the resume they'll figure it out in the interview.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because Russia's $120k in ad spending had so much more impact on the election than Hillarys $1,180m and the blatant collusion from 90% of the US media companies army's looking for dirt on the current President. If Facebook ads have that much power over people, it should definitely be shut down.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is a private company, and they are allowing people on their own service. The Daily Kos can turn down Trump ads. Breitbart doesn't have to take ads from Antifa groups. Facebook can do what the heck it wants to. When you sign up, you agree to this. Don't like FB? Don't run ads there, or don't even bother with an account. They are a private company hosting a service. They are not violating any laws by allowing paying customers to choose whom they display ads to.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't matter.

Also, Facebook isn't a 3rd party in this process, since their selection criteria for placing the ad allows their clients to select quite a large range of demographic markets for any and every ad that they place: age, nationality, race, gender, location (to more specific than zip code), education, favorite _____, etc. Also, they've already been charged with this type of discrimination before, so if they're still doing it, maybe we should see what happens when you imprison a corporation.

Re: There is a fine line here

[chispito]

Is that the only place they post these jobs? How is this different than a job fair at college? Or at a senior center for that matter?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Kierthos]

Yes, but if a private company placed an advertisement where, in the advertisement, they said "No one over the age of 40 need apply.", they'd potentially be breaking the law.

Now, to be fair, there are some jobs where, if you're over a certain age, you're probably not going to be hired. I don't believe the major airlines are looking to fill the ranks of their pilots with people in their 70s, for instance.

But when it's not the advertisement explicitly stating it, but it's the algorithm behind showing the digital advertisement to selected groups, is that still discrimination? Well, yes. But you have a harder time proving it, because you never see the advertisement to begin with.

Anyone can pick up a newspaper and look in the Help Wanted section.

Re:There is a fine line here

[kria]

I can also think of a legitimate use: if you have a selection of ads for the job in question that are tailored to appeal to typical potential employees in those age groups. To stereotype (since, necessarily, this would), maybe your young ad emphasizes the cool work environment with bean bag chairs (ha), while an ad for older workers emphasizes a strong benefit or relocation package. If they _legitimately_ want to diversify their workforce with people of different age groups, and have pretty good proof that they don't deserve to be sued, I think that's a good strategy. Or design ads that appeal to all of them equally and stop it.

Re:There is a fine line here

[chispito]

True, but it still doesn't do you any good to apply to a job where they'll look at your resume and discard it because you have too much experience. Or if you trim the resume they'll figure it out in the interview.

Why doesn't it? If you trim your resume to land a lower level job and reach a salary agreement with the employer... who cares? More importantly, where are these lower level jobs you're seeing that DON'T ask for everything and kitchen sink?

"Wanted: IT Intern. Must have five years' experience, especially in this two-year-old technology."

Re:There is a fine line here

[AmiMoJo]

I never really understood why that happens in the US. Around here they will just offer a low salary and if you take it then good for them, they got both a bargain and an excuse to pay less for experience the next time because of "market conditions".

The only time I've ever heard "too much experience" is when they really just don't want older people for some other reason.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

How about ads that only target Indian, Asians and Whites, because we all know that blacks have no place in an office.

How much discrimination are you OK with?

Re:There is a fine line here

[AmiMoJo]

Not really a fine line at all. It's about equality of opportunity, so if you are trying to deny someone the opportunity to hear about and apply for a job then it's a problem.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Oswald McWeany]

OK. How about instead we target IT jobs to people who read comic books? - Your friendly neighborhood HR department

Do you really want people that still read comic books as an adult working for you?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Oswald McWeany]

These aren't job offers, they're ads. Usually for shit positions at the bottom of the food chain.

Still wrong ethically, morally, and legally.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Oswald McWeany]

That doesn't matter.

Also, Facebook isn't a 3rd party in this process, since their selection criteria for placing the ad allows their clients to select quite a large range of demographic markets for any and every ad that they place: age, nationality, race, gender, location (to more specific than zip code), education, favorite _____, etc. Also, they've already been charged with this type of discrimination before, so if they're still doing it, maybe we should see what happens when you imprison a corporation.

Not on facebook, but back when monster.com used to be a thing and people looked for jobs there- I remember lots of companies would have written down something along the lines of "must be born in the US to apply". This directly goes against the amendment that states that you can't discriminate against based on nation of origin.

I'd usually send them an email pointing this out, after which they would apologise and invite me to apply. Naturally, I wouldn't. I knew I wouldn't stand a chance after complaining about that... and wouldn't want to work for such a company anyway.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Your funny, just because Fb is a private company doest mean it can break laws, like discrimation by age or race.

You wouldnâ(TM)t make the argument that facebook could add an option to disclude black people from ads on employement would you?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Spazmania]

So sending ads for a junior software developer only to folks in their 20s is a bad thing? Because I have to tell you: the hit rate for qualified candidates for that job who happen to be over 50 is so much smaller that I don't want to spend the money and, to be frank, far fewer of the folks over 50 want their time wasted with my junior developer ad.

Remember, these ads aren't only going to facebook. They're also on the various job boards where anyone interested can find them with a search. And anyone can apply regardless of age. The question is: which demographic will I spend my money proactively notifying when I'm looking for job candidates just out of college?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

So in the interests of correcting some theoretical slight to older IT workers, we want to make it mandatory that if a company is going to buy ads for "Come join Company X and see why we're the number one workplace for college grads!" they have to show that ad to people who are in the latter stages of their careers and interested in senior positions, not low level flunky positions?

Look I get it, IT has a real problem with treating anyone older than 25 as a relic of a bygone era, but at the same time, if a 40+ year old IT worker REALLY wants to work for Verizon, I'm sure they know how to click the "careers" link on Verizon's home page.

Re:There is a fine line here

[omnichad]

The company that placed the ad broke the law. The only reason to blame Facebook is the size of their pockets.

Re:There is a fine line here

[ctilsie242]

I have heard "too much experience" translating to "as soon as the economy picks up, I know you will be ditching us for greener pastures." Saw that in 2008.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

F@CK FACEBOOK

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you missed this part: "Many jurisdictions make it a crime to "aid" or "abet" age discrimination, a provision that could apply to companies like Facebook that distribute job ads."

I'm not saying that may be fair under the law (and circumstances), but that's at least 1 reason why people are going after FB in this case.

Re:There is a fine line here

[olsmeister]

Sure. It really cuts down on the Donald Trump rants.

Re:There is a fine line here

[bluefoxlucid]

There's no mechanism to enforce that, so someone raised a concern. On the other hand, it's ProPublica, who like to manufacture outrage by flawed reasoning. They routinely get a hold of lesson's learned documentation from the Red Cross and publish an article about ARC "covering up" and "ignoring" severe systemic problems, for example (if you're not a PM, you might not know that everything you do should generate LL).

A method to ensure an ad campaign is running certain types of ads targeting all age groups would be interesting, nonetheless. I'm not sure how to implement it, though. Consider: there may just be more fitting 30-somethings than 50-somethings. More of your ad money gets spent on impressions and CTR for one age group over another, and that age group gets more advertisement. It's representative, but not even; how do you prove it's representative?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

1 Word from the Russian President to influence an American election would normally be considered an offense by the supposedly patriotic Republicans. A secretive, furtive effort? Well, that's just fine and dandy, even despite their railing over the indignity of illegal voters(still looking for those 3 million, eh Kris Kobach?), fraudulent elections(Derp, remember Roy Moore!), and all sorts of exhortations that we must preserve the system, because their guy won.

Also, that's why they can't seat Doug Jones, can't have somebody voting against them, in fact, he should just resign and let the Alabama governor replace him again, it wasn't a fair election.

Re:There is a fine line here

[AmiMoJo]

Isn't that the case for everyone now? In my experience the younger ones move on quickly too, they see changing job as the primary way to get a rise and they are not really wrong...

Re:There is a fine line here

[Mattcelt]

You're 37, Dennis.

Re:There is a fine line here

[mjwx]

Age based ads targeting comic books to teenagers, ok. Age based ads targeting IT jobs to Millennials but excluding people aged 40 is a problem.

That isn't a fine line.

Comic book == optional.
Job == mandatory.

The reason we have anti-discrimination laws are to prevent workers from being excluded because of an attribute that an employer may find undesirable but has no bearing on competency or work quality... such as being old enough to know how to demand to be paid what we're worth.

Re: There is a fine line here

[AbrasiveCat]

That doesn't matter.

Also, Facebook isn't a 3rd party in this process, since their selection criteria for placing the ad allows their clients to select quite a large range of demographic markets for any and every ad that they place: age, nationality, race, gender, location (to more specific than zip code), education, favorite _____, etc. Also, they've already been charged with this type of discrimination before, so if they're still doing it, maybe we should see what happens when you imprison a corporation.

Not on facebook, but back when monster.com used to be a thing and people looked for jobs there- I remember lots of companies would have written down something along the lines of "must be born in the US to apply". This directly goes against the amendment that states that you can't discriminate against based on nation of origin.

I'd usually send them an email pointing this out, after which they would apologise and invite me to apply. Naturally, I wouldn't. I knew I wouldn't stand a chance after complaining about that... and wouldn't want to work for such a company anyway.

Ok, how about, must be eligible for a US Gov security clearance. The Government discriminates about non citizen constantly.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Doctor Memory]

True, but it still doesn't do you any good to apply to a job where they'll look at your resume and discard it because you have too much experience. Or if you trim the resume they'll figure it out in the interview.

Meh, hasn't been my experience. I've got close to 40 years of software development experience, but I only list the last ten on my resume, because that's all that's relevant (nobody's hiring VMS C developers around here). Nobody cares if you've got experience with VB4 or Borland Paradox, they just want to see that you've got 2+ years with AngularJS or Java 7. Having 10+ years of experience in development AND staying current with relevant technology is probably the best position to be in.

Re:There is a fine line here

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Do you really want people that still read comic books as an adult working for you?

In IT? Yes, absolutely.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

You do understand that targeting comic book ads to teenagers is maximizing sales opportunity, while targeting IT jobs to exclude workers based on age doesn't actually maximize the opportunity to obtain the best or most productive talent, right? There is not a lot of obvious harm in denying older customers the early opportunity to collect another comic, but if you're applying for H1B slots because you got no responses to the ad seeking experienced IT help when you limited that ad to 20 year olds and under, you're cheating twice.

And while the state does overstep, this is a fairly plain violation of the Equal Opportunity Act, in the US, aka Title VII. Change the law or send the EEOC to challenge both Facebook (and other venues) and the advertisers to prevent age criteria from being used in employment ads.

It's that simple. While advertising in Wired instead of The New Yorker might be age based discrimination, it's prima facie when you click on age groups to set the ad distribution. Simple problem, simple solution. Shouldn't take more than a week. Longer if the venues claim they can't control their customers. This fight has been fought in other circumstances.

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

"must be born in the US to apply"

This is better expressed as "will not sponsor visa applications or visa transfers".

Which is pretty common language nowadays.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

This provision is allowed for in the law. Specifically, where mandated by government regulations and/or law. This covers government-mandated security clearance.

Re:There is a fine line here

[gnick]

Anyone can pick up a newspaper and look in the Help Wanted section.

I'd be very surprised if I learned that my current position had been listed in the paper. I was recruited through Indeed, which I'm assuming has the same age dilemma as FB. However, after a little digging I see nothing there that would enable screening on age for employer or prospect. I'm assuming they decided it was a bad practice since job availability is all they advertise. FB has that screening already built in as a standard metric for advertising, so the only decision is whether to ignore it.

A lot of discrimination is legal. Want a job that requires a security clearance? Better not be a foreign national. Want to be a ballerina? Better not be overweight. Want a job playing a 10yo on TV? Better not be 40. Want a badge and a gun? Meh. Here, they're yours.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

The nastiest plot is to offer you contract-to-hire, let you start, get the most pressing work done, and in the meantime coerce your agency to disclose your age. Very hard to prove, very hard to prosecute. And they never have to give a reason for not extending the contract. Nor is it a violation to be unable to keep scrum masters when your dev team is behaving like psychopaths.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Doctor Memory]

What it really means is "We won't pay you what you're worth." Companies that treat their employees like assets and not like consumable, interchangeable components tend to have much less turnover.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rogoshen1]

it's funny though, the younger crowd will accept lower wages than the 40+ oldsters, but in terms of total cost for the employer, the older guys are almost certainly cheaper. For the same reason outsourcing dev work to india is more expensive in the long run.

HR goons and MBA's are the worst thing to happen to the US economy since ... I don't know, get off my lawn.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

Not that.

But my office is well populated by workers of all races - even a Navajo. And not just tokens either.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

"pretty good proof that they don't deserve to be sued"

No, the law doesn't allow such a defense. In fact, that argument is pretty much only used by those companies caught red-handed.

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

I don't know if there's been as challenge to a non-student attending a college-sponsored job fair, and that would be interesting.

Maybe, maybe not.

Re:There is a fine line here

[William Baric]

Since there are no laws forbidding people to create their own jobs (as in being self-employed), someone offering you a job is not mandatory at all. As for anti-discrimination laws, they are anti-liberty, anti-competition, and they have no valid reason to exist other than some bullshit ideologies.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

And we all just know older workers don't retrain or change roles.

Yeah. Sure.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Holi]

But it also discriminates against naturalized citizens.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Archangel Michael]

Russia would have lacked a tool to help Von Clownstick get elected.

There happens to be almost no evidence whatsoever of Von Clownstick working with the Russians.

There is plenty of evidence that the Obama Justice Dept, the FBI, The Hillary Campaign and the DNC working to get a fake dossier on Von Clownstick from Russian intelligence. It is perhaps the whole reason there is a Independent Counsel investigating Von Clownstick, especially if the fake dossier was the FISA court's only evidence of "Russian Collusion".

But that will be "old news" shortly when it is reluctantly outed by the Main Stream Media, and Hillary, Obama and all the powerful elites of DC will get away with rigging an election (and STILL losing). Don't worry, a few unimportant underlings will be sent to Fed Prison, so you can point to someone taking the fall.

But hey, stick with the whole "Von Clownface colluded with the Russian" talking points as long as you can.

Re:There is a fine line here

[hey!]

The hiring manager cares. You go in and everybody you talk to is delighted to have someone with such great resume. Then you met the person you'd be reporting to and he's a lot younger than you. You get a very different vibe; he's cautious, because he's afraid what you're really after is his job. Or at the very least you think you know more than he does, which you probably do.

Re:There is a fine line here

[hey!]

I took two years off because one of my kids was sick. Killed my career.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

True enough, anti-discrinination laws are meant to bitchslap Libertoon fools. WooHoo smack-em-down! Bet it hurts randish bosco! But truth is ideologies are important ... much more important than actual physical productivity. Gobeke Tepe ought to have taught you that.

Re: There is a fine line here

[e432776]

OP is about naturalized citizens, not non-citizens.

The government *may not* discriminate against any citizen (natural born or naturalized) wrt security clearance. See this for a ruling from 1988 reaffirming that a citizen is a citizen is a citizen. We even have a naturalized US citizen serving in the US senate.

As far as I know the only exception is the position of commander in chief.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Entropius]

Are you interested in bridges? I have a very fine one I'm selling.

Re: There is a fine line here

[david_thornley]

Not to mention people born out of the country to US citizen parents.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen both ways. I have seen Scrum masters have 4-6 hour long standup meetings and demand an accounting from each team member (even having other divisions like IT attend) because of a permanent sprint. With an environment where each dev had to point the finger at someone, or actually risk being fired, it was an extremely hostile environment.

I have found it definitely the case for all but very few companies/organizations where if you want a raise or promotion, you jump ship. Especially for people starting out who are in the helpdesk/tech support jobs. There is such a "firewall" between that section and other places in companies, that the best thing, career-wise is to make that leap to somewhere else.

As for nasty plots, what I've seen were companies demanding Skype interviews as a filter, or pretending to hire and ask for ID "for making the badge". If over 40, the contract winds up just being terminated for no reason, or you get handed a project that is completely impossible to do, then get fired for "performance reasons." Or just simply disable the contractor's badge, and say that their ways are too fossilized to be a good fit.

Ironically the companies that do this crap are the ones that need experienced people, because they are doing absolutely stupid stuff (like forcing their whole dev process around a single DevOps tool because the tool is "fashionable".)

Re:There is a fine line here

[david_thornley]

The problem is not that Facebook allows companies to place ads that illegally discriminate, but that Facebook serves employment ads to younger people only. Facebook is taking action that results in illegal discrimination.

Re:There is a fine line here

[chispito]

The hiring manager cares. You go in and everybody you talk to is delighted to have someone with such great resume. Then you met the person you'd be reporting to and he's a lot younger than you. You get a very different vibe; he's cautious, because he's afraid what you're really after is his job. Or at the very least you think you know more than he does, which you probably do.

That still does not illustrate how it does the applicant no good to tailor his or her resume. Sometimes you should hold out for the best job, sometimes you just need to pay rent.

Re:There is a fine line here

[david_thornley]

There's evidence. Trump has had extensive dealings with Russia. Trump campaign workers lied about meeting with Russians, even when such a meeting would have been perfectly normal. Trump called on Russia to, at the very least, release the results of illegal hacking in order to influence an election.

I suspect there was some collusion, but we'll know more after Mueller releases his findings.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, then how did Obama get elected?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

My funny?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea what the fuck you just said.

You should seek professional help... You're literally incoherent.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the bridge is in Iran, and was built with billions of American tax payer dollars that were secretly shipped at night in an unmarked cargo plane.

You like to pretend that you have the high ground. You don't. You are party to traitors.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they could place the recruitment ads on Pilipino dating websites?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Apply for, yes.

Hear about? Fuck no.

Just because I didn't hear about a staffing position at some company doesn't mean they now get sued or fined. That's fucking retarded.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that include increased health care costs?

I'm assuming you're referring to costs that can be quantified as opposed to "soft costs" that cannot be, and hence are simply matters of opinion, not fact, yes?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that adults are the ones who create them right ?

Re: There is a fine line here

[thegarbz]

Which is pretty common language nowadays.

It's a good way of spotting companies with no legal advisers and no legal department of relevance.

The common language I've seen is "Must be eligible to work in the US to apply"

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

" I remember lots of companies would have written down something along the lines of "must be born in the US to apply". This directly goes against the amendment that states that you can't discriminate against based on nation of origin. "

Except there are jobs that mandate you are a US citizen because, if you're not, you won't be getting the clearance necessary to perform the job in the first place.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trump called on Russia to, at the very least, release the results of illegal hacking in order to influence an election." .. LOL!!! He was making a joke, a tongue in cheek comment because the corrupt one was blatantly obstructing justice. What a moron..

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever worked with a Filipino women in IT? They kick ass and don't take bullshit.

Re:There is a fine line here

[xanthos]

Agreed. The comic book readers have ideas. The ones that don't are simple minded code monkeys that clone crap off the crap answers on StackOverflow.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's so beneficial to target older people, then why are we having this conversation?

That it is beneficial to target them isn't relevant. It's not your concern if a company is making beneficial decisions for themselves. That's their business... Not yours, you self-righteous busybody.

Re:There is a fine line here

[omnichad]

but that Facebook serves employment ads to younger people only.

The employer clicked the buttons to select that. I still think the employer deserves all the blame.

Re:There is a fine line here

[thegarbz]

The problem is when people use "too much experience" to describe naturally transient jobs. I got this when I applied to be a factory hand moving, unskilled labour doing what I'm told moving shit around. I called them out on it, told them I'm not here just because the economy is bad, asked them about their career progression, asked how many years I would need to work to become until I got promoted to top of the unskilled labourer moving boxes around and doing what I'm told. I asked if on retirement I'd get a gold watch.

I didn't get the job, but hey. I actually applied to the same place a year later when they changed who they outsource their hiring to. Left all my qualifications of and acted quite stupid in the interview. I was hired! Surprise they have a large staff turnover because despite the good pay people don't make a career of pushing boxes around if they can avoid it.

 

Re: There is a fine line here

[thegarbz]

I know we don't generally care about who comes up and talks to us at a job fair. Hell we poached an engineer from the competition one day. The job fairs I've attended (both as a student and as part of a company) were nothing more than advertisement. We would take names, but the jobs are all posted on our careers site.

We did get some older experts apply for some graduate positions, but really it's not age discrimination when you're targeting fresh graduates and then rule out professional for the job. Some times you're looking for silly putty to mould to your tastes not experience.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen both ways. I have seen Scrum masters have 4-6 hour long standup meetings and demand an accounting from each team member (even having other divisions like IT attend) because of a permanent sprint. With an environment where each dev had to point the finger at someone, or actually risk being fired, it was an extremely hostile environment.

That, kids, is why you need to save up enough to cover your expenses for several months.

Go back to your desk, grab your personal effects, and leave.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

The techs at my government IT job tend to fall into two camps (depending on location): comic cons or gun shows.

Hire the gun show enthusiast. They know how to retire old hard drives by putting a bullet through the platters.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Oswald McWeany]

"must be born in the US to apply"

This is better expressed as "will not sponsor visa applications or visa transfers".

Which is pretty common language nowadays.

I'm a citizen. I don't need a visa.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

How does "will not sponsor visa applications or visa transfers" discriminate against naturalized citizens? If they're a citizen, then why would they need visa applications or visa transfers?

Re: There is a fine line here

[chispito]

The job fairs I've attended (both as a student and as part of a company) were nothing more than advertisement. We would take names, but the jobs are all posted on our careers site.

...which is what this article is about. Ads.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people still using "rockstar" are 40+ year old dinosaurs.

Re:There is a fine line here

[barc0001]

Sounds good. I'm an IT person and read the occasional comic. I am also over 40.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately most of the civilised world has advanced beyond your primitive view which accept such things as 'only white males may apply for this post', 'blacks sit at the back of the bus'.

How does it feel to be a relic of a bygone age?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not your concern if a company is making beneficial decisions for themselves. That's their business... Not yours, you self-righteous busybody.

I'm afraid that you are wrong. Let me explain: We, the people, via our government, grant certain *privileges* to Corporations, such as limited liability. In exchange for these privileges Corporations have to fulfil certain *duties*. If you do not wish to fulfil the *duties* then you do not get the *privileges*. See?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

+1. Best damn Analyst I've ever worked with was a Filipino woman.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Spazmania]

At 44, I am older tech industry worker. And sure, I continuously train and my roles evolve.

Across all the interviews I've given and resumes I've evaluated, I've only once come across someone who did a complete reset after his early career. Just once. Had he called back when I tried to schedule an in-person interview, I would probably have hired him.

On the other hand, I've encountered lots of older folks in low-level tech jobs. Because that's what they were qualified for, the level at which they were capable of producing useful work product. Not because they're old. Because they're mediocre. And they have the work experience to prove it.

So I ask again, when I'm looking to fill junior staff positions, why should I spend money alerting the part of the talent pool that in almost every case is either looking for more senior work or simply mediocre?

Re: There is a fine line here

[rhazz]

How is this different than a job fair at college?

At a college job fair an older student would be able to see the job advertisements at your booth.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Archangel Michael]

No, but I hear you're interested in beach front property in Arizona.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Archangel Michael]

I suspect there was some collusion

Nellie Ohr, wife of Obama Justice Dept official Bruce Ohr worked at Fusion GPS, the firm behind the fake dossier built on Russian counter intelligence and paid for by Clinton campaign and the DNC. That is more collusion than Mueller's been able to find. But then again, he isn't looking for collusion any more (there wasn't any), he's looking for spend Millions of dollars trying to find some other crime Trump or his associates committed.

So far, they have Flynn admitting to lying. And one indictment on stuff that happened LONG before Trump even announced.

The Fake Dossier is the poisoned tree that will free anyone who actually might be guilty, because without it, there is no FISA court warrant that started it all.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstand. People donâ(TM)t go to pilipino dating websites to recruit IT workers.

However you are incredibly enlightened to think that pilipino women are driven and tough. Wow. You have so much to teach us on the racial characteristics of Asian women. Thanks for posting your insights.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an interview like that. The hiring manager was 26 and incompetent. I pointed out things he thought were new, where in fact decades old and he was making the same mistakes I made when I was in my 20s. I had him stumped as I asked him questions. I finished the interview by telling him he was a junior level engineer and has no place in management, then I walked out.

I ended up being hired by an established and profitable company, while watching the other company continue to flounder and eventually go out of business.

Kids these days want it all and they want it fast. I interviewed a young software engineer that had an idea to go get an MBA. She actually wanted more money than I was making. I told her the MBA was pointless at her level unless she want to go into the operations side of the business.

Re: There is a fine line here

[reanjr]

What does that say about all the Eurasian adults who let the children tell them what to do?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, they would use the phrase "whizz-kids". Scientists get called "boffins" or "eggheads".

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimer, you illiterate ameba,

My first name is: Lill
My last name is: Yayako

You definitely have to get your meds input regulated. You are furtherly loosing it as we speak, just as Silvia Bunge and Nancy Guerrero have mentioned here.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's ProPublica, who like to manufacture outrage by flawed reasoning.

No, that would be Project Veritas.

Re:There is a fine line here

[ctilsie242]

I took a year off due to a bad medicine reaction. That killed my career dead. I wound up finishing college while interning, and rebuilding from scratch after that. Even just 3-6 months can get one's resume roundfiled.

One trick I found that helps is to make a large portfolio on GitHub of scripts and stuff you have done, maybe a small application or two. That way, you can say to an interviewer that you did stuff, and point to the repository as proof of what you know, so they can see what you are capable of and focus less on the time gaps.

I did find that removing all but the last ten years of experience did help as well. Nobody really cares about AIX, even Solaris these days.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Moof123]

If a manager considers your age a disqualifying factor they are practicing age discrimination. Full stop. Its valid to worry about how someone's career goals match the position, but simply assuming someone older than you wants your job is not legal, and says a lot about you and your company.

I am in an odd corner of the tech field, and currently am the second youngest person in our team of ~20 folks, and I am over 40. As the team leader (not quite a manger, and want to keep it that way) I've interviewed and recommended hiring folks close to 20 years older than me. Frankly if one of them wanted my duties I'd happily hand them over. Our long term issue is that our funding model makes us seek out a minimum of 15 years experience for all hires. We have no entry level track, nor do we have lower level folks to hand off the simpler work to. Most designers with 15 years experience are also still designers for some good reason, such as they prefer designing, or have personalities that would not be good a good fit for management. We are hurting for folks with management ambitions regardless of age.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Moof123]

Welcome to At-Will employment. If you want someone to stay you are welcome to give them incentives and a high salary. Employers who offer no job security and then turn around to bitch that some underpaid underling leaves as soon as they can get a less crappy job with a higher salary deserve ZERO sympathy. Eff em.

Maybe they should be honest and put "Looking for a well educated naive soul to toil endlessly for a below market salary with industry trailing benefits." in the job post.

Re:There is a fine line here

[mjm1231]

You can attempt to live in a reality where aiding and abetting aren't things. But that reality does not exist, so, um, good luck there.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live, they just make people sign noncompetes, and have the fine be the entire salary they have for the past five years.

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

And you wouldn't need as sponsorship for a visa here. Right? That language doesn't seem to be a problem for you.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Swave An deBwoner]

By 51 percent of the popular vote which translated to 61 percent of the electoral college vote.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012

Or do you mean how was it possible that Donald Trump's birther campaign against Barak Obama fell on its face?

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

People born out of the country to US citizens aren't denied citizenship outright. They are naturalized... That is a more interesting question depending on precisely where they were born, but generally no problem.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

"Born in the US" != "Is a US citizen"

Re:There is a fine line here

[fahrbot-bot]

Meh, hasn't been my experience. I've got close to 40 years of software development experience, but I only list the last ten on my resume, because that's all that's relevant ...

I think that's true to some extent for many (most?) positions, but I have about 35 years experience - about half and half software engineer and system admin (on just about everything from PCs to Crays) - and found that my employers liked that I have a very wide breadth of experience to handle just about anything that could come up. For those employers, showing that on your resume helps. In many cases, I'm not trying to complete with youngsters who only know the latest new thing and I offer experience in things they really don't know - like "why" things work the way they do (or don't).

In fact, one of the reasons my first employer, a very small software development company, hired me was because I took LISP in college and spent two years as an undergraduate research assistant doing LISP and Prolog work on a NASA grant investigating automatic programming techniques in LISP. I also ported the Franz LISP interpreter/compiler (written in C, Assembler and LISP) from 4.3BSD (VAX 785) to SunOS (Sun 3). The company didn't do any of those things, but the President (who interviewed me) liked that I studied and did things out of the ordinary while in school.

Still, to each their own.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

I've gone from office machine repair to word processors to pc repair to network and systems admin to technical analyst for a financial institution. Not total reboots, mostly evolutionary, though the analyst role had me learning the payment industry while I spend 30% of my time supporting a PC app and web apps.

Most 'older folks' do end up training into entry-level jobs. In fact, most people train into entry-level jobs. That's what training gets you, until you build experience, which isn't training per se.

ps - 'older folks' is slang I hear from 'young kids' meant to describe 'too old'. I get that a lot from the Millennials I work alongside. I'm fairly tolerant of that soft discrimination. Most would not even recognize it if it were pointed out to them. But in the main they are adapting well to our corporate culture, and they will pretty well also adapt to the 'older folks' that actually make their ideas work. Funny thing, they like success. Who knew?

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

When I see ads looking for degrees but not experience, I assume they are looking for clay.

When I see ads looking for myriad experiences I generally find they are looking for visa opportunities, claim there are no qualified applicants and go the visa route. I notice our gummint has started vetting the visa applicants to see if they actually meet the requested criteria. Seems it's harder than I knew to prove that they do.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Swave An deBwoner]

The Trumpeters have always been full of jokes. One needs a sense of humor in that environment.

Funny How Trump Was Cool With Ted Nugent Joking About Killing The President

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-ted-nugent-donald-trump_us_592f1ec9e4b09ec37c31577e

Re: There is a fine line here

[blackomegax]

*don't

Re:There is a fine line here

[Dread_ed]

Facebook is a public company, not a private company.

You shouldn't be left alone.

You could choke on a straw, or a spoon, or some rocks. I worry, you know.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Swave An deBwoner]

Where do you live? In California noncompetes have been ruled illegal, and in most places a noncompete must be limited both geographically and in time (typically not more than one year).

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL forgot to check "Post Anonymously"?

Now we know blackomegax is one of the creimer-trolls. An ass is missing a hat!

Look at his recent post history, he's obviously a sarcastic half-wit who uses words like "cuck" unironically.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Many boffins died to bring us this information...

Re:There is a fine line here

[omnichad]

I prefer to live in a world where people don't blame third parties for their own actions.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've recently witnessed the agony of sponsoring an H1B recently, and I can tell you that it's not worth the hassle.

We have a very talented individual working for us as a contractor, in a senior developer position. We spent the time getting her up to speed on our codebase and business domain.

To hire her, we had to interview 22 people, and certify that none of them met our selection criteria. The problem is, there were probably 2 or 3 who did meet the criteria, but we didn't have the time to get them up to her level of knowledge.

So even though there were some who met the government's criteria for us to hire them, and therefore required us to hire one of them, they didn't meet our criteria of being able to do the work NOW. We knew from the start that none of them would meet our criteria, but we had to waste a lot time going through the motions.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of those people are the lucky ones. You're a fucking dick.

Re:There is a fine line here

[thegarbz]

The problem is not that Facebook allows companies to place ads that illegally discriminate, but that Facebook serves employment ads to younger people only. Facebook is taking action that results in illegal discrimination.

No it doesn't.

a) it's just a platform for targeted advertising. Nothing more, nothing less.
b) even if advertisements were ONLY placed on Facebook and advertisements were ONLY targeted at the young it's still not discrimination providing the link to the application is freely available, e.g. via the company's careers page on their website.

Discrimination laws do not need to provide equal access to advertising, just prevent actual applicants from being kicked out of the pool based on certain traits. Now if the ads had a link that was only accessible via the ad and the job wasn't available any other open way, then you may be talking, but that is still 100% on the company and not on the service providing the targeted advertising.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory, anyone can go to a college-sponsored job fair. If an ad is targeted, only the target audience sees the ad.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know the dossier is fake? I've heard of many parts that have been corroborated, but I haven't heard of anything in it that's been disproven.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the problem is ad targeting. I know plenty of people you'd consider older who are dumb enough to use Facebook. I didn't use social media when I was younger, and I don't now, in both cases because I recognize how idiotic it is.

Me not choosing to use Facebook and thus not seeing job ads there--not actionable. Facebook allowing companies to not show ads to people who use Facebook based on age? Actionable. Companies advertising ONLY on Facebook with the intention of only reaching a younger crowd (Facebook not generally being an IT job platform)? Also actionable. That's where Facebook's stance here is bullshit.

The law is the law, and you don't get to avoid it because computers.

Re:There is a fine line here

[MrKaos]

I took two years off because one of my kids was sick. Killed my career.

Were you able to recover?

I took two years off to learn to walk and it was a nasty experience starting again.

Re:There is a fine line here

[MrKaos]

So I ask again, when I'm looking to fill junior staff positions, why should I spend money alerting the part of the talent pool that in almost every case is either looking for more senior work or simply mediocre?

How do you fill senior roles?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

"we" = Christopher Dale Reimer.... :(

Re:There is a fine line here

[LynnwoodRooster]

What parts, would that be? Especially since Steele himself wrote that it couldn't be verified. And it was his dossier! Wishing something is true doesn't make it so...

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

You = blackegax

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Why should a bunch of foreigners come over here and take our jobs away or become citizens just because they had a baby with an American. Go to Israel or China with that stuff. You'll be sterilized.
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

Re:There is a fine line here

[Opportunist]

That's a lie that my passport tells. I've been 8 for decades now!

Re: There is a fine line here

[Opportunist]

What makes you think that were women?

Re: There is a fine line here

[Opportunist]

A 5 year old with a gun does get his pudding without eating his meat...

Re:There is a fine line here

[Opportunist]

So... if I aim a gun at the president but you are the one pulling the trigger, I won't get the chair?

I'm asking for a friend.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Pimpy]

This usually isn't that nefarious - it's more often than not that the job description was written by someone without much understanding of the law, something that happens quite frequently when you have e.g. technical hiring managers that post job descriptions without first running it past their legal or HR department, or someone who has just moved to a new country and is still getting caught up on the legal differences. Another favourite of mine is when a "native" English speaker is required, in place of a fluent one. That being said, I wouldn't want to work for a company as sloppy or demonstrably incompetent as this either. The kind of company culture that results in people making end runs around entire departments to communicate externally is also not one I would choose to be a part of.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Spazmania]

By casting as wide a net as I can and then asking interview questions which let them reveal how deep their skill goes.

My favorite question is: "You open up your preferred web browser, type "www.google.com" in to the location bar and press enter. Between the time you press enter and the time you see Google's web page displayed on your monitor, about half the field of computing happens. Starting when you press enter, tell me step by step in as much detail as you can what the browser, operating system, network, servers and so on actually do."

The most common answer is, "the browser contacts Google's web server and loads the page." This answer does not result in a job offer.

The second most common answer is, "the browser looks up the IP address for www.google.com. Then it contacts Google's web server and loads the page." Points for realizing that the DNS exists and plays a role here but this answer does not result in a job offer either.

If your steps include the routers arping for each others' MAC addresses so that they can transmit the TCP SYN packet from one to the next, or if your steps include the OS libraries compositing fonts to pixels for display in the browser window or if you can tell me any of the myriad tiny details which add up to a browser displaying a requested web page, you're the winner. That plus a job history that demonstrates creativity and competence adds up to an offer.

The nice thing about this question is that it works for system administrators, software developers and network engineers, all three. Competent members of each group can talk in detail about some part of the computer's process finding, loading and displaying that web page. A long answer could days hours but as an interviewer it's obvious in less than 5 minutes how deep an answer the candidate is capable of offering.

The other nice thing about this question is that it works over the phone, so I can employ it early in the tech phone screen.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Spazmania]

'older folks' is slang I hear from 'young kids' meant to describe 'too old'.

I don't think the "young kids" would agree with that assessment if you asked them to explain what they meant.

Re:There is a fine line here

[david_thornley]

That is more collusion than Mueller's been able to find.

Are you stating this because you've illegally hacked in to Mueller's investigation, or gotten information from someone who has, or is this just blind faith? Mueller is not going to release what he's got as long as the investigation continues.

The Fake Dossier is the poisoned tree that will free anyone who actually might be guilty, because without it, there is no FISA court warrant that started it all.

The poisoned tree isn't what it used to be in the US. A court warrant is issued because a law enforcement officer swears that there is probable cause. If it's based on phony evidence the government collected, it theoretically should be discarded, and all evidence gained directly or indirectly thrown out. If it's based on phony claims by a private citizen, and the LEO doesn't know it's phony, it's still probable cause sworn to by a LEO.

Re:There is a fine line here

[david_thornley]

Right, like Facebook blaming ad providers for Facebook's actions.

Re:There is a fine line here

[omnichad]

If aiming a gun at someone wasn't a felony, maybe?

Re: There is a fine line here

[lgw]

You misunderstand. People don't go to pilipino dating websites to recruit IT workers.

"Reminds me of the time I hired a Filipino call girl to do my IT while I banged my IT girl."

Re: There is a fine line here

[lgw]

The government *may not* discriminate

Just so you know, "may not" and "may" are synonyms. Either means "is allowed to choose". I doubt that's what you meant.

Re:There is a fine line here

[lgw]

The company that placed the ad broke the law. The only reason to blame Facebook is the size of their pockets.

Both are to blame. Facebook build a system that allowed job ads (and housing ads!) to be filtered on protected classes. This is no different from a realtor who chooses not to show houses to black people - definitely illegal.

Re:There is a fine line here

[lgw]

There's evidence.

Yes there is evidence. Turns out it was faked, mostly be Fusion GPS, a company in the business of election-time smearjobs. Do you watch "Scandal" - companies like that that make scandals go away are real, as are the opposite: companies that create scandals.

It's the real inner workings of government, part of how the people who are actually in power determine who gets elected. I can't even guess whether Trump represents some now power group, or was genuinely elected despite the system. Interesting times.

Re:There is a fine line here

[omnichad]

This is no different from a realtor who chooses not to show houses to black people - definitely illegal.

Yes it is different. This is an automated platform for advertising. Can Facebook's server look at that ad and determine that it's a "job" ad or a "housing" ad? How do you expect Facebook to know?

Re: There is a fine line here

[blackomegax]

How'd you know i anon replied to myself?

Re:There is a fine line here

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes.

Re:There is a fine line here

[cthulhu11]

Facebook themselves practice it by requiring that everyone move to the Silly Valley. Who's going to be willing to do that? Kids who don't mind living 5 to a shitty apartment. Who isn't? People with homes and families.

Their CAFO-style working environment also discriminates against the neuro-diverse.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Archangel Michael]

I haven't heard of anything in it that's been disproven.

Guilty until Proven Innocent then eh?

That, and they have actually falsified a number of bits in the Dossier.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Archangel Michael]

If the Dossier was the basis for the FISA court warrant, and there is provably false information in the Dossier (there is) and the FBI was in league with the Fusion GPS, along with the Justice Dept (they both were) then the whole thing is tainted. Period.

The only people who don't see the taint are all die hard Trump Haters who would believe anything to get Trump impeached.

Look, I'm not a fan of Trump, didn't vote for him. But I can see the absolute nature of the Deep State in play here. And that is what scares me more than Trump Presidency. Because if the Deep state wins, then NOBODY is safe, and welcome to the People's Republic of North America, where the Clintons rule like the Kims.

Re:There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

Some do. Some do not. I've had the unique opportunity to participate in some marvelous forums and exercises where this was explored. Your assertion would have been shown to be false at these events.

Re: There is a fine line here

[suutar]

I had thought that children of US citizens born outside the country were still "native born" for legal purposes. But the point was that they are technically not "born in the USA", so would theoretically be ineligible for those jobs.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

Youâ(TM)re a neo-Naxi halfwit who stalks an autist for fun. You were probably the fat kid who got picked on in school and nowâ(TM)s your chance to be the bully.

Re: There is a fine line here

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in HR. There is nothing fine about this line. It is blatant discrimination. This is what happens when HR is viewed as an impediment to conducting compliant business

Re: There is a fine line here

[e432776]

You are right- I should have typed "must not" to be clearer. Thanks.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Cinnamon Beige]

This is no different from a realtor who chooses not to show houses to black people - definitely illegal.

Yes it is different. This is an automated platform for advertising. Can Facebook's server look at that ad and determine that it's a "job" ad or a "housing" ad? How do you expect Facebook to know?

Facebook made the choice to not spend the money to have people (or anybody) vet the ads before they get run. This is the decision they may find themselves in legal trouble for--that they decided that it was better to whine about how hard and expensive it would be to have somebody vet ads they were accepting money to run.

Re:There is a fine line here

[Cinnamon Beige]

So I ask again, when I'm looking to fill junior staff positions, why should I spend money alerting the part of the talent pool that in almost every case is either looking for more senior work or simply mediocre?

So you can take advantage of word of mouth? Quite a few of the job postings sites require you pay for access, or for more useful filters, or have a free version that claims to let you filter for entry-level jobs but has an interesting definition, and even if they were all free, there's still a lot of places to check for jobs so doing it alone is difficult. Networking pays off, even if it's with people looking for jobs that are just enough different from the ones you're after that you aren't going to be in competition so there's no problem with trading leads with them.

Re:There is a fine line here

[lgw]

Of course it can. Far far easier than determining your income and age from your posts.

Re:There is a fine line here

[wv5k]

What an idiot...

Re: There is a fine line here

[rickb928]

Citizenship, not birth, is usually an employment criteria. A few federal elective offices require naturalization that was once understood to be born to a citizen. Just one being sufficient.

Re:There is a fine line here

[MrKaos]

Thank you, very interesting.

I had to reset my career in my late thirties due to an achillies tendon injury so bad that it took me two years to be able to walk again. I did that with a Masters in software design where I re-invigorated my childlike passion for technology and became even more capable. Even though I could answer your questions with theories about their domain, stories of CPU schedulers and the flow of data through custom ASICs in traffic weighted routers, during those times I wanted a junior role because I simply didn't have the energy or focus I needed for a senior role.

I love learning new IT stuff, it is so interesting, however all of the ageism concerns me and makes me wonder if IT will remain viable as a career unless I own the business.

Re:There is a fine line here

[RockDoctor]

But Jeffty Is Five, Harlan!

Re: There is a fine line here

[suutar]

usually, yes, but the quoted requirement under discussion was "must be born in the US to apply". Whether that's actually an accurate word for word quote or a paraphrase I don't know, but as written, it's problematic.

Lies, lies and statistics

[thsths]

The argument is really a very bold lie, with absolutely no evidence to support.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[AmiMoJo]

What does this have to do with statistics? It says right in TFS that they are targeting based on age. There is zero statistical evidence, they are simply telling Facebook to only show the ads to younger people. Facebook doesn't even deny it, they just say "it's normal in recruitment and somehow good for older people".

What is this weird, Pavlovian "all discrimination is a lie" response?

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

And sadly it is supported by a lot of short sighted youngsters who don't seem to grasp that they'll age.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[bluefoxlucid]

That's par for ProPublica (I am their biggest detractor, as far as I can tell). Still, I think it would be nice to have policy and mechanism to ensure that certain kinds of ads are part of an ad group targeting all ages, races, or whatever requirement. It's a legitimate concern, even if this is more manufactured outrage.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[rickb928]

"certain kinds of ads"

Like ads for housing, insurance, mortgages, credit, you know, certain types of well whatever.

You're not doing well with this argument. It's not discriminatory to target clothing ads based on age. Housing, credit, insurance, yeah, fairness is an issue in those categories.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, "certain kinds of ads" indicates a subset of all ads. It would be imprudent to try and list all possible contingencies without having a firm understanding of all markets and potential discrimination.

I'm not sure what you did aside from repeat the same argument and list some examples.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[david_thornley]

Age discrimination (against people 40-65) is illegal. Discrimination is an issue in employment.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

I have always had a decently good impression of ProPublica. But I am open to evidence to the contrary. Since you are their biggest detractor, would you care to give evidence of their lies?

I am genuinely curious.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

My assumption is the GP is referring to Facebook's argument.

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me introduce you to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm

Re:Lies, lies and statistics

[rickb928]

That was my point. I left off employment, but clothing or retail is generally not a protected market. Generally. Think it through. Redlining.

No Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon: We target younger people because older people won't take our shit.

Re:No Shit.

[omnichad]

Really? I present as evidence Ajit Pai.

Re:No Shit.

[rogoshen1]

you have that backwards, he's verizon's shit.

Re:No Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

you have that backwards, he's verizon's shit.

And people are taking him...

Very clear defense by Facebook

[MrMr]

I suppose they think I can 'responsibly apply' this accepted industry practice to other demographics like gender, race, religion etc.?

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[nctritech]

One year ago Facebook was caught allowing housing discrimination by race and they had to pull those ethnic filters to clean the egg off their faces. I wonder how long that was allowed before someone figured it out though.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[MobyDisk]

That was an informative link, thank you. It brings up an important point:

Ad enforcement should not be Facebook's responsibility. We need to stop blaming the providers of infrastructure and tools for how companies abuse them. The companies need to be held liable.

ISPs are not responsible for what people post. Knife manufacturers are not responsible for what people cut with them. Book distributors are not responsible for what is written in the books, or who buys them. Shipping companies are not responsible for the legality of the contents they ship. Alcohol manufacturers are not responsible for who drinks them. Taxis are not responsible for checking if people are allowed to go to the places they go. And advertisers should not be responsible for making sure that advertisements aren't violating laws with the ads they place.

This last point is especially important considering that every municipality in the world has different advertising laws. In some places in the world, ads for alcohol or sex services are illegal, but not in all. Some might not allow them at certain times of day. Some kinds of political ads are illegal or subject to disclosures. Facebook can't possibly enforce this stuff. What if a company just wanted different job ads for millennials versus people over 40? Is that legal or not? Facebook can't be the ones responsible for making that judgement call.

The other reason for this is because if the intermediary enforces the law, it shields the people who are violating it. I want to know the companies that are doing this, and I want the force of law to come against them. The individuals placing these illegal ads need to know that they are committing a crime, and the public should know that the company was doing it. I want to make sure I don't work for that company, and don't buy from that company. If I work for that company I want to use my voice to stop it. So don't have someone mask the problem.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[drinkypoo]

Ad enforcement should not be Facebook's responsibility. We need to stop blaming the providers of infrastructure and tools for how companies abuse them. The companies need to be held liable.

Tools which are only useful for discrimination on some types of listings shouldn't be available on those types of listings. Problem solved. The features can be retained in the platform, and used where they are legal.

Re: Very clear defense by Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

When you use the word *should* you are making an implicit value judgement. Try again, because you having an opaque value system isn't morally compelling.

Re: Very clear defense by Facebook

[drinkypoo]

When you use the word *should* you are making an implicit value judgement.

Well, no. This is about compliance with law. In general, tools are illegal if their purpose is illegal. I also happen to think that what they are doing is wrong, but I'm just talking here about what they ought to expect to be legally obligated to do. They already backed down on a similar issue; expect them to back down here, too.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

While a laudable goal, if somewhat altruistic, the reality is that Facebook is liable if the law is interpreted here correctly.

By being the entity that:

      (a) holds the private data regarding the protected class (age, race, sex, religion, etc.),

      (b) provides the platform for the said advertiser to winnow their anticipated audience, and then

      (c) delivers the adds to that anticipated audience,

Facebook (and any other such service {cough}Google{cough}) is wholly complicit in this activity.

So, this means that such an entity will take whatever steps are necessary to keep any and every lawyer from finding an excuse to sue the shit out of them. And there are a lot of lawyers out there looking for a good excuse make bank on it.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[rickb928]

Permitting age discrimination in employment ad placement is a violation of the law. Ask the newspaper industry.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[david_thornley]

Ad enforcement should not be Facebook's responsibility.

Sure. I'm cool with that. It has nothing to do with the case at hand.

The problem is not that Facebook serves illegal ads, it's that they serve ads illegally. They are delivering employment ads only to people of specified ages. This is nothing even vaguely like what a common carrier would do.

The other reason for this is because if the intermediary enforces the law, it shields the people who are violating it. I want to know the companies that are doing this

I generally agree with that, but it's again inapplicable to what we're talking about.

If Facebook serves up an employment ad that says "No people over 30 need apply", anyone who sees the ad will know the company is practicing illegal discrimination. If Facebook only serves the ad to people 30 and under, that's not apparent. People over 30 won't even know about the ad, and there's no obvious smoking gun.

Re: Very clear defense by Facebook

[MobyDisk]

This is about compliance with law.

Whose law? And how would the software know it is illegal?
I gave 2 examples in my post where the software could not possibly know if it was illegal. One was if it was illegal only in some localities, and the other is if they used the tool to have different ads target two different groups. The software doesn't know either of those things. The solution isn't to write software that enforces laws. It's kinda like DRM, it just doesn't work unless it curtails everyone's freedom even if they are doing something legal.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[MobyDisk]

Yet another example of the "lawyers are jerks, so everyone is liable" argument. That isn't a productive line of thinking. The law must, either through codification or through court precedent, must make liability clear. The solution is not for everyone on the planet to assume they are liable for everything. Especially in a world of computers, where computers cannot make legal or value judgements. By your logic, Facebook needs to implement logic to understand what the submitter is doing with the ads, and what municipalities you plan to delivering them to, and what those municipal laws are, etc. That's impossible. It's a slippery slow that they can't win.

There's a flip side too: Suppose Facebook blocks my ad, which was perfectly legal but their computer didn't know it. Now I sue Facebook. By your "keep any and every lawyer from finding an excuse to sue the shit out of them" argument, Facebook is damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[MobyDisk]

Newspaper Tort Liability for Harmful Advertising
Sounds to me like advertisers are not typically liable for the content of ads, except in the court of public opinion. Here's another one:
The Scope Of Liability For False Advertising Claims

That one talks about stores that have been held liable for claim in an their catalogues, for products they sell. It says "the court found that once the retailer actively involved itself in the promotion of the product" which is probably why newspapers have advertising disclaimers. Ad of course, the newspaper is clearly not selling the product in the case of job ads. I'm not sure this applies.

Do you have any examples to show that the newspaper industry is liable here?

Re: Very clear defense by Facebook

[drinkypoo]

Whose law? And how would the software know it is illegal?

You're kidding, right? Trolling, maybe?

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[MobyDisk]

That's an interesting argument: that since Facebook is the one doing the filtering, they are thus liable. You are correct that a common carrier would not be doing this. I still think it is a slippery slope though, since Facebook can't possibly enforce the laws of every local government through their web site. Let us try to think of scenarios where it might be perfectly legal for a company to do this. Suppose it was Uber, who has been sued for gender discrimination. It is not unreasonable to imagine them coming under an an injunction where they had to interview more women, or more people of a certain age. Ooh! I just remembered that the Baltimore City Police Department is under such a DOJ watchdog right now for similar practices. Now this theoretical Facebook block would prevent the companies from doing that.

This is why computers should not enforce laws. Computers are dumb machines that pass through information as instructed. Another example might be if a company is doing A/B testing with ads on different age groups. That would be perfectly legal, but Facebook's ad bot wouldn't know that.

Stop "pass through" liability. It increases the cost of doing business everywhere, and hides the real criminals.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[david_thornley]

I don't consider this pass-through liability. Facebook is participating in breaking the law.

Also, the lack of transparency bothers me. Again, if a company puts out an employment ad that says Catholics and Pastafarians need not apply, that's illegal, but everyone who goes to where the ad is will see that and know that. If Facebook restricts an ad from Catholics and Pastafarians, who knows? The only reasonable thing to do would be to have Facebook keep records of what ads go to what groups, to be examined periodically, and I think that would be worse.

Re:Very clear defense by Facebook

[rickb928]

This instance shows an example of an ad that is probably, probably, infringing.

Craigslist was challenged for this. From the article:

"The FHA makes it "unlawful to print or publish or cause to be printed or published any advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, family status or national origin."

This post advises that the 2010 Equality Act prohibits publication, and so holds the publisher equally liable...

Section 623e of the ADEA specifies an employer is prohibited from "(e) Printing or publication of notice or advertisement indicating preference, limitation, etc." Continuing:

"It shall be unlawful for an employer, labor organization, or employment agency to print or publish, or cause to be printed or published, any notice or advertisement relating to employment by such an employer or membership in or any classification or referral for employment by such a labor organization, or relating to any classification or referral for employment by such an employment agency, indicating any preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination, based on age.".

I suspect, as a matter of law, a newspaper could easily be found to be liable for having been an agent to "cause to be printed or published" such a notice, and liable for its publication.

But remember

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no age discrimination in the tech industry! (As long as you're willing to work unpaid hours)

Still won't see ads if they target older folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even have an account on the Facebook machine.

Re:Still won't see ads if they target older folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a step a head of me - have an account - oh well - and one pic up. The good thing is that I have yet to post 'what's on my mind'. I have a few computers and most of them have all the snoopy Facebook tracking domains (like Google they track people, even those who are not signed up, all over the web) deadsunk in their respective hosts files.

# [BLOCK FACEBOOK]

0.0.0.0 api.ak.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 api.connect.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 api.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 app.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 apps.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 ar-ar.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 badge.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 blog.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 connect.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 connect.facebook.net

0.0.0.0 de-de.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 developers.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 es-la.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 external.ak.fbcdn.net

0.0.0.0 facebook.com

0.0.0.0 facebook.de

0.0.0.0 facebook.fr

0.0.0.0 fb.me

0.0.0.0 fbcdn.net

0.0.0.0 fr-fr.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 hi-in.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 it-it.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 ja-jp.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 login.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 profile.ak.fbcdn.net

0.0.0.0 pt-br.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 ssl.connect.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 static.ak.connect.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 static.ak.fbcdn.net

0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com

0.0.0.0 www.facebook.de

0.0.0.0 www.facebook.fr

0.0.0.0 zh-cn.facebook.com

:o)

Re:Still won't see ads if they target older folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

fyi, and to stop the 127.0.0.1 fanbois, from dsl reports:
---
Using 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1 is indeed faster because you don't have to wait for a timeout. It also does not interfere if you are running a web server on the local PC.
If you use 0.0.0.0, you may want to add this entry just before your first 0.0.0.0 "blocking" entry:
# Special Entries
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 # fix for traceroute and netstat display anomaly

Without that entry, some network status and diagnostic apps will use the hostname associated with your first 0.0.0.0 "blocking" entry as the name of the default IP address (which has caused a number of confused/confusing posts in this and other forums).

Re:Still won't see ads if they target older folks.

[Second_Derivative]

Ah, but you do.

Have any real life friends? Ever been entered into their phone's phonebook? Ever been photographed with them? Ever have those friends helpfully tell the facial recognition database who this unknown person in this photo might happen to be?

Re:Still won't see ads if they target older folks.

[PPH]

Facebook is just so 2000's. Who even uses that anymore?

Facebook has Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who, in this day isn't using an Ad Blocker?

Re: Facebook has Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assholes who use Facebook

Re:Facebook has Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Me .. but I have a large hosts file.

Re:Facebook has Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what she said...

GOD YES - make someone responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

"Congress is weighing whether to limit the immunity that it granted to tech companies in 1996 for third-party content on their platforms."

YES. I am so fucking tired of Yelp/Angie's List/etc. shielding anonymous assholes from identification for libel. Just a hint of shared responsibility would go a long, long way towards making shitty liars find a different hobby.

How about tackling Amazon's counterfeiters population, since Amazon themselves are inclined to only make a trifling show of caring? Another area where letting 3rd parties on your site should not be consequence free...

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[MrMr]

I see you practice what you preach Mr. Coward.

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just opinion:

My problem with carte blanche accountability for third party content is that while the biggies (e.g. YouTube) would have vast amounts of money to defend themselves, people who operate smaller forums will be held accountable for every little post that some SJW feminazi wants censored. If the posts per day go beyond a small handful, moderation might not catch everything, making running a simple forum too risky if there are legal ramifications for what is said in posts.

Here (Canada), the gov't (if I remember correctly) has already sent first party people to jail for opinion posts posted by third parties on forums. While the hate speech laws have since been struck down somewhat, there is a resultant chill on free speech here, a country we hope should be a land of light, freedom, reason and rights.

IMHO, people have the right to free speech, and governments have no business censoring text posts; even if they upset some SJW's feelings; or perhaps especially if they upset some SJW.

Now as far as hiring practices go in western countries, there are already laws statutes and ordinances for that, and excluding people from consideration based on age is probably already unlawful and illegal in most cases for large corporations. Companies found doing so can be held to account for that already (I'm not a lawyer). IMHO, it's up to the company hiring to make sure it is not discriminating, not Facebook.

When it comes to libel, perhaps sites should be required to take down libellous material when notified, they needn't be held accountable for its first original posting? In other words, that something libellous is posted doesn't make the site responsible right there. But if they are properly notified through proper channels and then refuse to take it down after a reasonable number of days, only then can they be held liable?

But I am wary of any restrictions from governments as the corporations themselves are beginning to have heavy hands. Sadly, we're at a time when every dissenting opinion is being de facto muted on the likes of YouTube, and only the mainstream alt+Left opinion is allowed.

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

"When it comes to libel, perhaps sites should be required to take down libellous material when notified, they needn't be held accountable for its first original posting? In other words, that something libellous is posted doesn't make the site responsible right there. But if they are properly notified through proper channels and then refuse to take it down after a reasonable number of days, only then can they be held liable?"

OP here. This seems like a great idea.

On the subject of the counterfeiters that Amazon does nothing about, any thoughts? I don't think that something reactive will work there. Amazon has to give a proactive crap and bear the burden of policing their own store - policing should not be the responsibility of the companies whose goods are counterfeited.

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[omnichad]

When it comes to libel, perhaps sites should be required to take down libellous material when notified, they needn't be held accountable for its first original posting? In other words, that something libellous is posted doesn't make the site responsible right there. But if they are properly notified through proper channels and then refuse to take it down after a reasonable number of days, only then can they be held liable?

Only if you don't believe in the basic protections of your rights like being innocent until proven guilty. That would be like a DMCA takedown notice except with no recourse for the person whose free speech is being violated.

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

How, exactly, is their "free speech" being violated? Is the person whose libellous comment is removed also being thrown in jail?

Free speech doesn't mean "You can say anything you want, anytime, about anyone, on any platform (regardless of ownership) and it will be consequence free."

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[david_thornley]

You seem to be confused by the DMCA takedown process. If you run a site, and a user posts something, and you receive a DMCA takedown request, you are not legally required to take that thing down. However, if it is in violation of copyright, you then are liable along with the user posting it. If you know it's clearly not a copyright violation, leave it up. Companies that host a lot of third-party content normally don't pay careful attention to the copyrights, so they follow the DMCA safe harbor process.

Re:GOD YES - make someone responsible

[omnichad]

If you run a site, and a user posts something, and you receive a DMCA takedown request, you are not legally required to take that thing down.

To maintain your safe harbor, you must. If the user then still claims its not a violation, you can repost it and still maintain safe harbor.

In the case of this libel idea, it would need the same protection.

Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[Baron_Yam]

I would never see an ad on Facebook, since I'm security and privacy conscious and Facebook is a way to surrender both of those things.

I suppose the day may come when it's important enough I can't avoid it, in which case I will hire a PR company to produce a managed online presence for me, designed to appeal to the idiots in HR who think shit like this is a good idea.

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[leonbev]

I'd never see an want ad on Facebook either, because I use an ad blocker.

Funny... it seems that that using Facebook ads for finding workers basically guarantees that you'll get people with less concerns for privacy and security. Isn't that the exact opposite of what you want if you're hiring for a tech company?

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[omnichad]

An ad blocker? Sponsored content and regular content come from the same servers in the same data feed on Facebook. It would take a very sophisticated algorithm to pick out ads to hide.

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[pr0fessor]

Not to mention they would probably have their face stuck in their cell phone on facebook all day everyday. Perhaps they are targeting people in that age group on facebook so they know which ones not to hire.

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[sabt-pestnu]

I have to wonder what type of security consultant would be hired through a Facebook ad.

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they want people who are less concerned with privacy and security.

Re:Just limiting ads to Facebook is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

A GREO

Gender Race Equality Officer. All content unblocked! Everyone, you're free behind the DMZ! Free speech enforced!

What did you expect from Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Supporting the employment of anyone over 35 isn't cool. Older people can't work had, can't adapt and probably have families that take away from working nights and weekends. /S

(Seriously, fuck Facebook, especially when a potential employer would get a first-hand look at a candidate's personal life.)

Re:What did you expect from Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Supporting the employment of anyone over 35 isn't cool. Older people can't work had, can't adapt and probably have families that take away from working nights and weekends. /S

(Seriously, fuck Facebook, especially when a potential employer would get a first-hand look at a candidate's personal life.)

Is there anyone on Facebook under 40?
My nieces only use it to send updates to the old folks.

Narrow targetting is the new norm

[Anonymous Coward]

If they advertised on Fox News, they'd reach only older white males who think President Hillary's to blame for their sharply rising health insurance cost. You wouldn't get many employable people though.

All channels are now narrow channels.

Even if they didn't specifically select age as a criteria, there are so many proxies for age, you'd have to play whack-a-mole to bat down each with legislation. Do you seriously think they will legislate against the interests of Koch brothers?

Re:Narrow targetting is the new norm

[Oswald McWeany]

If they advertised on Fox News, they'd reach only older white males who think President Hillary's to blame for their sharply rising health insurance cost.

But, a young black female who loves Hillary isn't specifically excluded. You can advertise on Fox, and although you hit a different demographic than if you advertised on say "Buzzfeed", you're not specifically excluding them. There is nothing wrong with advertising on Fox News because they don't categorically exclude people. Heck, I bet they'd love nothing more than to have liberals watching so that they could have a chance to convert them. They'd love nothing more than to get young black females voting for Trump in 2020.

Companies do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

We posted an IT job opening in the local newspaper that clearly stated a minimum of 2 years experience and got dozens of responses from people who couldn't even spell IT, all eager to learn. Moved the ad to Craigslist and the quality of applicants improved dramatically, as you would expect. It's just smart to target your audience so that your recruiting time and dollars go as far as they can. Oh, and we ended up hiring a 63 year old guy who had moved to our area to be closer to his grandkids

Re:Companies do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

neither of the methods you've detailed made your Ads invisible to any demographic - anyone could look at the local paper or at Craigslist. The situations are different.

Leading?

[coofercat]

Verizon is among dozens of the nation's leading employers

They can't be leading very much if they're only recruiting a subsection of the qualified populous. Why not just call them what they are - a big, shit employer.

Re:Leading?

[JeffOwl]

Yes, judging by the number of times I've seen Verizon workers going on strike I'd say they are probably not the best place to work.

Re:Leading?

[cthulhu11]

Depends if you consider a precarious contract to be employment.

It works both ways

[smooth wombat]

If the idea is to exclude older workers for one or more of the various reasons employers always cite, then similar reasons can be given to exclude people in their 20s.

Such as, irresponsibility, checking their phones rather than doing work, checking Facebook rather than doing work, more willing to request time off, raising a family, the list goes on.

It's always hilarious to hear employers whine they can't find people with experience, who then go out of their way to exclude people with experience.

Re:It works both ways

[sizzzzlerz]

What is left unsaid, however, is they're hiring experienced individuals who don't expect compensation commensurate with that experience.

Re:It works both ways

[smooth wombat]

Don't worry. Those tax cuts coming down the pipe will trickle down to the workers in the form of higher wages.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Boston area, companies are moving closer to the city and out of the suburbs, trying to attract the younger workers.

Sure, they get lower paid workers that are more likely to work excessively long hours.

They also get mistakes of inexperience; they can develop things new to them that an experienced hand knows is a dead end. They don't know it can't be done.

The rent closer in is much higher than in the suburbs; many areas further out have had empty space for a few years.

For anyone not actually living close in, they have a terrible commute that can burn people out. It takes me ~ 2hrs 1 way on the train. For people in the city, there is much less traffic leaving the city during the rush. My daughter's dance studio teachers live in the city and do the reverse commute.

Of course, sometimes it can't be done and they do it anyways.

As for the older employee not learning new tech? BS. I've lived through the transition of stand alone PCs -> LAN -> Internet. The move from physical -> VMs -> Cloud & Containers. Proprietary minis w/ terminals -> Unix Workstations/DOS PCs -> Everything on Windows -> everything online in a browser with PCs, tablets, phones. scripting shell/batch/C programs -> perl/VB -> AD GPOs/python -> PuppetChef/Ansible. I've learned & forgotten lots of stuff over the years on my own and will continue to do so.

Re:It works both ways

[slick7]

Don't worry. Those tax cuts coming down the pipe will trickle down to the workers in the form of higher wages.

First of all, no they won't. Secondly, the hive-mind smartphone addicts can't peel their faces off long enough to grasp reality for what it is. When the power goes out there will be plenty of millennials looking to older people to show them how to start a fire, drive a stick shift, hunt for food. Nah. Facebook, Instagram and the other mind numbing entertainment sites will take care of them. Nah. The power is with the people, all it takes is one finger to push the off button and go outside and relate to the environment. Nah. Reality is harsh. I worked with computing systems since the 70's, they do many fancy things, however, ingenuity derives from the necessary interaction with the real environment.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Re:It works both ways

[Wrath0fb0b]

What is left unsaid, however, is they're hiring experienced individuals who don't expect compensation commensurate with that experience.

Which is counterweighted by the possibility that the experienced worker will jump ship to another job (or even another position in the same company) that is a closer fit.

High turnover is one of the greatest threats to the stability and productivity of an engineering group. Heck, engineering is in large part the accumulation of knowledge and methods, much of which can be put into code and documents but for which there always some portion stored in meatbrains.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

If the idea is to exclude older workers for one or more of the various reasons employers always cite, then similar reasons can be given to exclude people in their 20s.

Such as, irresponsibility, checking their phones rather than doing work, checking Facebook rather than doing work, ....

Things that I also see plenty of 50-60 year olds also doing at the office every day.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

>It's always hilarious to hear employers whine they can't find people with experience, who then go out of their way to exclude people with experience.

A little like being a SJW and reading an SM novel called 50 shades. The demographics of HR departments are in line with this kind of reasoning.

Re:It works both ways

[smooth wombat]

Neither of you grasped the sarcasm in my comment. My fault. I forgot to include the tag.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know.

The fact that Facebook actively uses this for targeted, or de-targeting of potential users exposure... I'm not surprised by the tools in and of itself, especially for demographics advertising, but when you delve into employment opportunity advertising, you have now have a different set of rules to play by.

That Facebook is treating, presumably, all advertising by the same available rules, and what sounds irrespective of legal concerns, at a minimum means there should be in investigation into any violations.

Of course the counter argument is, Facebook is the last f'ing place I'm going to go look for a job opportunities. But then, I don't live on Facebook.

Re:It works both ways

[AtariEric]

...which is why they're constantly begging for H1B visas because no U.S. citizen with the skills will tolerate that crap.

Re:It works both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Those tax cuts coming down the pipe will trickle down to the workers in the form of higher wages.

Almost bust a gut laughing at this one.

Also Privacy Conscious

[Anonymous Coward]

Not on Facebook or any other social media. However, I'm happily retired, so no problems here. My adult, working children, however, are heavily invested in social media. They can't get around it.

Re:Also Privacy Conscious

[Anonymous Coward]

My adult, working children, however, are heavily addicted to social media. They can't quit.

FTFY.

OK Google, translate

[null etc.]

"Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work"

Google translate (source: weaslese (PR dialect; not Lawyer dialect); destination: commoner's English) ->

"Used responsibly (theoretically, and at the discretion of whomever is paying us to target ads), age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice (but we won't tell you whom it's accepted by) and for good reason (at least for us): it helps employers who wish to discriminate based on age to recruit, and people of all ages except for the discriminated age ranges, find work."

Wow, I never knew that translation technology could make it so easy to understand executives!

Re:OK Google, translate

[J-1000]

This sounds analogous to the anti-NN rationalization. Irony.

Changing my age on Facebook to 150...

[MiniMike]

Maybe I'll see no ads after changing my Facebook age to something ridiculous? Why does anybody put their real age/birthday into Facebook?

Re:Changing my age on Facebook to 150...

[DaMattster]

Maybe I'll see no ads after changing my Facebook age to something ridiculous? Why does anybody put their real age/birthday into Facebook?

HAHAHAHA! That's awesome. Do let us know what happens. Although I expect you'll see a lot of medicine ads.

Re:Changing my age on Facebook to 150...

[pr0fessor]

Depends!

Re:Changing my age on Facebook to 150...

[Whorhay]

It is a funny way to catch out "friends" that aren't paying attention. Every year a few people will post to congratulate me on my 100+ year birthday on January 1st.

Facebook go bork yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

--

Sincerely,

Every over 40 experienced I/T worker.

LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[Tora]

I don't know about advertising, but LinkedIn requires you to include a year on employment history--another way employers filter by age, since it is universal practice nowdays (at least in tech) to review somebody's linkedin profile as part of screening. It is an easy way to determine somebody's age.

Re:LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[cascadingstylesheet]

I don't know about advertising, but LinkedIn requires you to include a year on employment history--another way employers filter by age, since it is universal practice nowdays (at least in tech) to review somebody's linkedin profile as part of screening. It is an easy way to determine somebody's age.

True. In response, I just drop my first few jobs from it.

Re:LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of IT job applications specifically require "recent" experience in a particular field, so it makes sense that if you want to advertise you have a skill you'd need to provide the time frame for that experience. There's a significant difference in the value of 5 years of web dev experience from 2000-2005 versus 2012-2017

Re:LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I have a very specific employer in mind, I drop experience over 10 years. It is not relevant anyway.

Re:LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[AtariEric]

Fuck. That explains tons of recruiters and employers "looking at my profile" but not contacting me.

But don't you need to put those years on your resume? Won't places throw out your resume if specific years worked aren't on them?

Re:LinkedIn promotes ageism as well

[cthulhu11]

Even without years on employement, forms that require a year for *college* are even more effective at aging people.

LinkedIn practices discrimination with their own employment too.

We knew this was happening

[Anonymous Coward]

And it isn'restricted to tech. It explains why retarded gimmicks like AR, AI, and other old technologies are being touted as revolutions, though, it's millennialism 101, with their tendency to think nothing transpired before they were born. Explains why formerly great software is so buggy these days, too, and why the depth of a broad understanding of much of anything in technology couldn't fill a bottle cap.

Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow young people have young people jobs and older people have older people jobs. I wonder what might it be that makes the difference?

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[DaMattster]

Somehow young people have young people jobs and older people have older people jobs. I wonder what might it be that makes the difference?

Sorry AC but that is just crap. There is no such thing as young people jobs and old people jobs. There are just jobs. And in America, where we use money to barter for food, clothing, and shelter, jobs are necessary.

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as young people jobs and old people jobs.

the BOFH and PFY beg to differ...

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Oswald McWeany]

Somehow young people have young people jobs and older people have older people jobs. I wonder what might it be that makes the difference?

Over half the people I have worked with during my career have been over 40. I've always been "the young guy" at every place I've been (until my current job) - here I'm average age... and not too far off 40 myself. To be honest, I'm not sure why there is so much age discrimination against older IT staff. Younger staff know how to do things; older staff know how AND WHY to do things. Your 50 year old may make twice as much as your 25 year old IT worker- but they'll make far less than half the mistakes and cause far fewer project delays.

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[desdinova 216]

Your 50 year old may make twice as much as your 25 year old IT worker- but they'll make far less than half the mistakes and cause far fewer project delays.

I think that's your reason right there.

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

younger workers less likely to have a spouse or family... so they can be exploited by being forced to work overtime, nights, weekends... while also not needing family or new-parent leave

younger workers aren't tied down and are more willing to move or travel and less likely to bitch and whine about it

younger workers have less job experience... less job experience translates to less pay. older workers will demand "too much" money.

younger workers are expected to know whatever tech or language or framework or whatever is currently trending.

older workers, especially those over 50, tend to have more health issues.. which means more missed work.. higher insurance costs...

older workers are more likely to use up all their paid time off (vacation, sick leave, etc).

older workers are less likely to take shit from or eat the bullshit of an employer or boss, as they've already "seen it all" and will see it coming.

etc, etc, etc, etc.

the only time you need an "old person" in tech, is if you have some pre-1990 tech that's still running and they're literally the only ones that know what the fuck it is. in every other instance, it is to the employers benefit (read: pocket book) to hire the youngin's fresh from college (the degree being the first bogus qualifier that trims the pile of candidates).

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[PPH]

younger workers less likely to have a spouse or family

Maybe for a pizza delivery job. But in every outfit I've worked for, the new hires straight out of college were within a year or two of starting new families. That's one of the least flexible times in a person's life. Later on, when they are in their 40s, they just call the kids, tell them that they'll be late. "Just drive down to the store and pick up some chicken pot pies. You know how to work a microwave."

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Viagra tester. :-)

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Oswald McWeany]

Your 50 year old may make twice as much as your 25 year old IT worker- but they'll make far less than half the mistakes and cause far fewer project delays.

I think that's your reason right there.

Indeed, but it's rather short-sighted. They're worth twice as much because they don't make costly mistakes. Besides, it's one thing to set a salary so low a 50 year old won't apply; it's completely something else to say no one over 40.

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

But older workers who know HOW & WHY only make half the INNOVATIONS. Which may also say the other half are still innovating?

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your 50 year old may make twice as much as your 25 year old IT worker"

since fucking when. I am in my 40s and blow away the 20-somethings routinely and handily.

Re:Older workers don't want those jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, pretty much; it can be hard to quantify how experience makes the end results better, but seeing salaries on a spreadsheet is easy and bean counters love to keep those numbers as low as possible.

It's not just IT; at a previous company I worked for one of our best salesman was making a very large salary. I thought his work was enough to prove worth it - he brought some serious amount of business to the company. But as soon as layoffs happened, he was the first to go. Stupid in my opinion, but the company is gone now, so maybe I wasn't too far off...

Angry!

[DaMattster]

This makes me hate facebook that much more! I am now even more affirmed in my decision to leave facebook. I am over 40 and I now I am glad that I do not give data to facebook for them to sell.

Are ads in "printed" newspapers discriminating?

[squash_me_quickly]

First of all, this is the advertisers on Facebook who are choosing who should see the ads, all Facebook does is to make this possible.

In the same line of logic that "guns don't kill people, people kill people", "Facebook doesn't discriminate, advertisers discriminate". Facebook is just making it easier.

I would guess that the demographic of people who read the "old-fashion" paper versions of newspapers are getting older.

Would ads only printed "paper newspapers" be considered as discrimination?

Re:Are ads in "printed" newspapers discriminating?

[david_thornley]

In other words, the advertisers ask Facebook to do the illegal discrimination for them. This is a positive action that Facebook is doing.

Advertising in places with different demographics is fine. If an 18-year-old wants to read the newspaper, they can. Someone who is looking for a job is likely to check various sources of information, even if they aren't aimed at his or her demographic. This is a direct case of targeting people by age, and that is explicitly illegal.

Just Do It!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm over 40, nearing 50 when I will be "dead", but please let them continue to age discriminate before I come for an interview.

Because the alternative is that I and the company waste a lot of time, and they will just hire someone younger anyway giving me some lame excuse which isn't true.

I'd rather focus on the companies which don't discriminate.

Re:Just Do It!

[AtariEric]

I'd rather focus on the companies which don't discriminate.

I would too, but there's not enough of them; companies not ruthless enough to discriminate aren't ruthless enough to survive against companies who are.

Dilemma

[bickerdyke]

But that opens a really interesting question:

If targeting a an ad to a certain age group is age discrimination, shouldn't that be independent from the media the ad is placed in?

But, on the other hand, wouldn't placing an add in a context targeted at young audience vs. an older audience be the same kind of discrimination?

So, for every job ad placed in a "Walking Dead"* episode, has a company to place an identical ad in a "Matlock" rerun?

* or whatever these youngsters are watching today

A better way to fight age discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to hide age is pointless.

It is easy to find somebody approximate age. Just ask when he/she graduated high school.

Instead, age discrimination should be fought the same way that other forms of discrimination are fought: insist a certain number of senior citizens be hired into whatever position.

I like to put a fake age into online sites just to

[Joe_Dragon]

I like to put a fake age into online sites just to mess with them and they do not need to know my real age or some of that other info they want.

I've got karma to burn today

[rsilvergun]

So I'm gonna want a bit. I'm really getting tired of older, mostly white, right wing anti regulation, small govt loving folk who lecturing me on the glories of unfettered capitalism who suddenly want protection from Uncle Sam when _their_ rights are at risk.

You can't have it both ways. You can't eat that cake. Either the government works for and protects us all or none.

Re:I've got karma to burn today

[Anonymous Coward]

Either the government works for and protects us all or none.

Or we can go with your view:

Government should protect certain people who are more special than the rest of us, because votes.

Protip, kiddo, we just want you fucks to play by your own rules.

Re:I've got karma to burn today

[Cederic]

. I'm really getting tired of older, mostly white, right wing anti regulation, small govt loving folk who lecturing me on the glories of unfettered capitalism who suddenly want protection from Uncle Sam when _their_ rights are at risk.

Who are they then? I haven't seen them around here.

But keep making up people you can hate, we don't mind you having a good rant about them.

Re:I've got karma to burn today

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't have it both ways. You can't eat that cake. Either the government works for and protects us all or none.

Historically, governments have never done either of these: some people get protection, others do not. Even in the most progressive nations you will find this. In Scandinavia, for example, for over a decade there have been problems with refugees getting very different treatment than citizens.

Perhaps you slept through your history classes, and haven't been paying attention to current affairs?

It is unrealistic to expect government to protect us all. Life is imperfect. Corruption in human affairs is unavoidable. There are always going to be special interest groups that will manipulate matters to their own advantage, gaining all sorts of entitlements that they will fight fiercely to defend. Also, the bigger the government gets, the greater the pie that is available for people to go after, and thus the greater the corruption. To make matters worse, the more entrenched the corruption becomes, the harder it becomes to remove it down the road.

That being the case, wanting the smallest government consistent with a reasonable level of protection is a sensible desire.

Government in the USA could easily be 1/3 the size it is now and still provide a reasonable level of protection - corruption in the USA is deeply entrenched and creates enormous inefficiency, a problem that is compounded by massive problems in legal ethics that permeate the US legal systems (federal,state, and local). In all likelihood, a small government focused on doing it's job would actually produce far better results than the current disaster of a government - and could do so without going into massive debt that is already creating serious problems, and is going to eventually become an economic and social disaster. Excessive government means the USA is funding corruption by going to debt - a very bad state of affairs that, like any Ponzi Scheme, can not continue forever.

Surprising? Not really...

[The Cynical Critic]

When you consider the fact that Facebook has long since been caught allowing advertisers target their ads with a long list of parameters, some of them being quite questionable and with occasionally startling accuracy (like showing people actively trying to hide being gay ads for gay events like cruises) this isn't really all that surprising. In all honesty, what would be surprising would be if they didn't allow age targeting of job ads seeing how they already allow the targeting of other ads based on almost exact location, race, income, sexual orientation, political views, interests, etc.

This is probably going to piss off a lot of the older folks here, but having worked with older workers I can actually understand why companies want to exclude them from job listings. Sure, older workers tend to be more experienced, but they demand more salary, are much less likely to do 40+ hour weeks, overtime when necessary, acquire new skills as they go along and have skills in new systems or technologies before the organization adopts them. Even the usual complaints from the gophers about how the "young-uns" just doodle all day on their cellphones, facebook and the like ring kind of hollow when older workers are just as likely to waste time at work, they just look at stuff like porn, listings of cars or houses for sale instead. A friend of mine caught his boss calling a sex hotline at work one time.

Re:Surprising? Not really...

[gillbates]

So here's a different perspective, which I hope you'll consider, rather than lumping all older workers into the same stereotype. I would like you to consider an alternative viewpoint to the points you raised:

1. Younger workers cost the company more, because even though they demand less in salary, they learn the lessons of experience on the company dime. Blowing deadlines costs the company more than just the staff time of the worker; it damages goodwill with the customer, and - in some cases I've observed - cost the company millions of dollars in penalties. A younger worker who makes a mistake in judgment ("Yeah, but that would never happen...") can cost the company a lifetime of salary.
2. Most people can relate to the saying, "You get what you pay for." With older workers, this is especially true. You aren't paying just for their productivity, you're paying for their expertise. The company doesn't care if you can code 10 times faster than the older worker, if the older worker knows how to do it with 100 times less code. A real world example of this: at one company, a team of younger workers proposed a code solution which would have cost the company 300k in salary, to which the older, more experienced worker replied, "Yes, but you can do that with a registry change."
3. An older worker can recognize when a project is in trouble before the younger workers, and can correct the situation early enough to mitigate disaster. I've never known an inexperienced engineer who recognized project failure before it happened, much less how to correct it.
4. Younger workers have to put in 40+ hour work weeks because they don't know what they're doing, or they aren't using their time effectively, etc...
5. Older workers know that time spent learning the language fad du jour is wasted time if the company doesn't actually commit to using it. Once you've learned a few languages, you understand that picking up a new language doesn't take much time at all; but more, you realize that the largest factors influencing the organization's ability to deliver often center not around the technology used, but inadequate processes, bad design, etc...
6. Younger workers represent a much greater hiring risk because they don't have a proven track record. It is much harder to assess the value of a younger worker because they just don't have the experience which demonstrates their ability to handle new and unknown challenges.
7. Experience demonstrates an older worker's ability to keep their skills current and maintain a positive contribution in the face of changing technology. An employer wants to know that when the technological winds shift, their workforce will keep up, and someone who knows just one language, or has little experience hasn't demonstrated this.

So, I'm not going to defend the points one by one, but thought you should know how such statements are perceived by those with more experience. It is these people - with more experience - who will be evaluating whether you would be a good fit for their company.

Re:Surprising? Not really...

[The Cynical Critic]

It's rather ironic how you respond to me talking about what older workers tend to be like, i.e I don't actually lump all of them together, by accusing me of lumping them together and then proceed to present a bunch of copypasted arguments that lump people together based on their rough age. As your arguments are pretty clearly just some copypasted and you refused to respond to my observations I'm just going to return the favor and ignore your copypasted arguments.

Seriously thou, with technology being in constant state of flux and better ways of doing things being added right into technologies and taught to students I question the idea that experience is as valuable as older workers make it out to be. Sure, with experience you may come up with better ways of doing things, but the technology itself isn't going to be stale and much of what you may come up with over time is probably going to be implemented trough standard and additional features to the technology that younger workers are then going to use thinking that it's the way it was always done or not even realizing it's being used as it's now part of the technology's standard features.

Re:Surprising? Not really...

[david_thornley]

I'm not sure if it's ironic that you recognize an argument just like yours as bogus without doubting your own argument's validity, but it's something.

Re:Surprising? Not really...

[Cederic]

talking about what older workers tend to be like, i.e I don't actually lump all of them together

Wait? So you applied a stereotype without using stereotypes?

Seriously thou

Seriously though, learn to fucking spell.

with technology being in constant state of flux and better ways of doing things being added right into technologies and taught to students I question the idea that experience is as valuable as older workers make it out to be

That's because
- you're ignoring who the fuck worked out the better ways of doing things
- you're ignoring who's creating these new technologies
- you're ignoring that the older people don't need to be taught this shit, if we didn't invent it we just pick it up. We're good at that, we had to learn this shit before it was taught to students and our experience means we can pick up the new stuff faster because we already have a solid base from which to build

with experience you may come up with better ways of doing things, but the technology itself isn't going to be stale and much of what you may come up with over time is probably going to be implemented trough standard and additional features to the technology that younger workers are then going to use

Wait? So devising the techniques that become the standard isn't of value, because

younger workers are then going to use thinking that it's the way it was always done or not even realizing it's being used as it's now part of the technology's standard features

I disagree. I don't want some mindless cunt that knows 'this is how you do it because it is a standard feature', I want an intelligent thinking engineer that understands why it's the standard, why it's better than the old way and when the old ways may be more appropriate to a specific task at hand.

You've basically just argued that young people are stupid and worthless. I happen to disagree with you, but nice going.

Re:Surprising? Not really...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably going to piss off a lot of the older folks here, but having worked with older workers I can actually understand why companies want to exclude them from job listings. Sure, older workers tend to be more experienced, but they demand more salary, are much less likely to do 40+ hour weeks, overtime when necessary, acquire new skills as they go along and have skills in new systems or technologies before the organization adopts them.

One of the common mistakes younger workers make is to confuse what they have personally experienced - which is necessarily quite limited - for the general case. Thank you for providing a demonstration.

Every company and every workplace is different. The differences between the good companies - run by competent people with integrity - and the bad companies - run by other sorts - are enormous.

Everybody makes mistakes, but the younger workers tend to make more. The good ones learn from their mistakes, becoming far more efficient and effective, only to find the next generation making the same mistakes.

That's life.

Well run companies generally limit the scope of the work the younger workers are allowed to do, so that they have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes without catastrophic consequences for the organization.

Also, good companies have mentors for their new hires - especially the younger employees - and make an effort to ensure the mentoring is done well. That's hard to do, given the poor social awareness and poor social skills of the average engineer, but it can be done.

Bad companies try to make up for quality with quantity, and thus try to get large numbers of low cost workers. This sort of short term thinking almost always back-fires in the long term - but by that point the irresponsible policy setters have floated away on their golden parachutes (or otherwise moved on), leaving somebody else to clean up the mess, and sticking the stock-holders with the Bill (or greatly reducing the returns they get on their investment).

It's an interesting form of fraud, and a problem society has not figured out how to solve. It would probably be better if companies routinely made a substantial part of the executive compensation package act over the very long term, with the full pay dependent upon performance of the business over many years. But since executives don't want this, and all too often they set the policies, it probably won't happen without a major sea change in how society views business.

The government could help. We might start by not allowing anybody to sit on a board of directors if they are an executive or manager for any company, and to not allow anybody to sit on more than one board of directors.

Advertising is a tool

[salesgeek]

This is a great tool if you want to increase diversity. Sure it can be misused, but if you read the context, the article is trying to suggest congress make Facebook liable for the actions of their users. How does this actually fix anything? How is this different than making gun manufacturers liable for misuse of their products or auto companies liable for misuse of their products?

Try not having a Facebook.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never created an account on Facebook. In fact I have most of their tracking pixels blocked at my firewall. It seems that if you don't have a Facebook (or LinkedIn account) finding a job is very difficult. That alone should be a problem.

Maybe it's best to not force everyone to surrender their data to a bunch of evil California companies.

Interesting test of Facebook's status

[ErichTheRed]

Facebook has been sort of acknowledging its status as a primary source of news rather than a pure entertainment property lately. Issues like this test this status -- and other media outlets don't really have the ability to laser-focus ads. I've seen similar stories about Facebook allowing apartment owners to get around discrimination laws by using Facebook's targeting options when placing ads. A lot of people will argue that Facebook is just providing the tools and the companies are misusing them, but this is new ground IMO. Advertisers used to have to make an educated guess about their audience...why do you think almost every commercial on daytime cable news is a precious metal investment scam, a drug ad, or a personal injury lawyer? Now they can pinpoint exactly the type of people they want by location, race, habits, friends, etc.

What will be interesting in the coming years is that you're going to see a lot of older people kicked out of their jobs as they're automated, and they are going to have to start at the bottom of the pile again in a new field. Targeting these older workers might actually get the companies more responses from people even more desperate than recent college graduates. I guess the question is...will the nature of work change, or will we end up in a Logan's Run/Soylent Green situation where people just get thrown out after they turn 30?

go home 1hb's are killing US workers that have loa

[Joe_Dragon]

go home 1hb's are killing US workers that have big student loans to pay off.

junior pay level for jobs that are not junior

[Joe_Dragon]

I have seen "junior jobs" that want years of experience for a long list of skills.

Re: junior pay level for jobs that are not junior

[Spazmania]

A company that doesn't understand the job it wants to fill is discriminatory only against its ability to fill that job with a candidate that's not a bald faced liar. Age is not a factor.

LOLWUT?

[GameboyRMH]

Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work

As long as those are the ages they're targeting...which aren't all of them...because that would be kind of the opposite of targeting.

Facebook's going to get in trouble for this.

Show the ads to recent grads. I'm 41, just graduat

[raymorris]

If the job is appropriate for recent college grads, show it to recent grads. I'm 41 and just got my degree, and significant portion of students at my school are similarly not in their 20s.

Clearly Discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

Age targeting for employment ads is clearly illegal and clearly discrimination. I would think that the company that seeks or allows age based targeting should be the one who is punished. Many companies are probably wide open to expensive law suits and it speaks well of the disabled that they do not seek out potential employers to sue. For example a job qualification "must be able to stand for eight hours or longer" could frequently be used to generate a suit. Can the employer offer proof that accommodations can not be made for the employee to work while seated. "Must be able to repeatedly lift fifty pounds" is another item. Surely there are devices to assist lifting 50 Lb. objects available such that the employer can accommodate an employee with a lifting issue Obviously one could find companies to target with ease and probably make a good living from the law suits. I read of one fellow who is a cartoonist and he is always hired. It seems that the cartoon shops rent cheap walk up spaces rather than ground floor space due to cost. These smaller buildings do not have elevators and the man is in a wheel chair. The shops supply him with work to do at home as they clearly can not get him up and down the stairs and thus would be discriminating based upon the place that they offer employment.

Out of reality.

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegal vs "Accepted Industry Practice. Only in your nearest Silicon Valley stupid giant company.

"accepted practice"

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't make it legal. Age discrimination in the workplace is illegal.

Why?

[rsilvergun]

Just to play devil's advocate, if a business decides that young people are more valuable employees than people over 40 who are you to say they can't make that decision? I'm not arguing whether they're right or wrong, BTW, so please don't respond with a bunch of reasons why older people are good workers. Let's say they are. If that's the case wouldn't the business that hires Millennials lose out to a business hiring the much more productive older workers? Therefore why should we have to worry about age discrimination in the first place? Shouldn't the free market take care of that when the (poorly run) businesses that rely on Millennials go tits up?

Re:Why?

[david_thornley]

Just to play devil's advocate, if a business decides that young people are more valuable employees than people over 40 who are you to say they can't make that decision?

Who am I? Not who makes the decision, that's for sure. This is part of Federal law, and most states have similar laws.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US over 40 is a protected class from age discrimination as per the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. 621 to 29 U.S.C. 634).

So I guess "we" are saying it in that the United States passed a law saying it. Whether they are good workers/better workers/worse workers really makes no difference.

I suggest you reach out to your lawmakers to encourage them to repeal this law. Until then, the free market isn't free to age discriminate. As long as you're so pro-free market, you should also discuss the need to repeal the other protected classes as well based on the same justification - e.g. The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps

Job ads on fb?

[Anonymous Coward]

I question the professionalism of anyone who looks for jobs on Facebook.

Discriminatory

[brian3201]

The problem is that this is specifically job ads, and it's targeting people for what they *are*, not their skills. Would some people comfortable with this be OK if the job ad was targeted as "Women only apply" or "No Jews"?... I'd like to think that would be a problem.

If ya punched out juboi buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

... like a couple C-level FB Semis ... oooh betcha them broken legs hurt! 'Course be legal about it ... no maumauing the gevilta-fish eatrs! hehehe can't be illegal with lawbookers about! See what age-related employment ads appear then and which do not.

Re:Show the ads to recent grads. I'm 41, just grad

[Anonymous Coward]

Does facebook have a "recent grads" category? (I don't know) If not, then targeting younger people is a decent proxy for that.

  And while I appreciate that older people go to school and get degrees too, if you're talking about bang for buck in terms of ad spend, targeting younger people with ads for entry level positions is far more likely to yield positive results than targeting 40 somethings, even if some of those 40 somethings are recent grads.

Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Old workers are shitty workers. My company typically finds coders who are over 40 or so to be sub-par and are usually let go. Yes meritocracy can be a bitch, but this policy has served us very well.

Re:Good.

[gatkinso]

Post a link to your github. Let's see just how good you are.

Umm, just no.

[holophrastic]

I'm pushing 40. I'm in the IT world. I'd love to know that no one will discriminate against me. And that's all fine and dandy.

But there's a big difference between not hiring me because I'm 40, and being forced to spend money to advertise to me.

I also run a business. Damned if anyone's going to tell me how to spend my advertising budget. If I can (or believe that I can) get better bang for my buck by targeting what I believe is better value, then you ain't a'gonna stop me.

Besides, I'd argue that any 40 year old can easily pretend to be 25 years old to read job listings. And if a 40 year old responds to my ad in teenager-weekly, he's welcome to convince me that he's the better candidate. I'm happy to listen and I'm happy to be convinced.

Yes there's a line to be crossed where a thousand 40 year olds line up outside my door, and flood my interview time, but there's no rule that says I need to interview in sequence, nor that I need to interview absolutely everybody who shows up to the last man. So provided they aren't illegally blocking access to any responding teenagers, the more the merrier!

Re:Umm, just no.

[oh_my_080980980]

Oh fuck off and die jackass. How much money did it cost Facebook to EXCLUDE an add from people's pages who were not between the ages of 25 and 36. Think ass-hole think.

Re:Umm, just no.

[holophrastic]

For the business that's paying facebook for each impression, that company would rather not waste money on the 90 year-old eyeballs. That's valid.

Think harder.

I'm not talking about facebook. I'm talking about the people who are paying facebook.

idc

[SlashDread]

LinkedIn is surely disclosing age in some ways as well, nevertheless, I get more job offers then ever. I'm currently over 50.

Good companies, select people based on past performance, as it is the only reliable predictor for future performance. Hip Young Startups, that do age discrimination are being silly for no reason, and it will hurt them.

Not me.

Re:Show the ads to recent grads. I'm 41, just grad

[david_thornley]

Using an illegal proxy for something that's legit doesn't make the proxy legal.

Burden of compliance

[mysidia]

Is ON THE COMPANY HIRING.

I see not necessarily an inherent issue that they can Age-target their ads.

If they are not discriminating, then they can run multiple Ads for the same job at the same time with each Ad taylored to attract applicants from a different age group.

If this becomes an issue, then additional government regulations could REQUIRE the advertisement of jobs in Online venues or Offline newspapers that can equally be viewed by candidates of any age.

Re:Burden of compliance

[oh_my_080980980]

They are discriminating because unless you were between 25 to 36 - YOU DIDN'T SEE THE AD. Do you get it now....

Re:Burden of compliance

[mysidia]

They are discriminating because unless you were between 25 to 36 - YOU DIDN'T SEE THE AD. Do you get it now....

MAYBE someone is. But the target-ad-by-age feature is not inherently discrimination. You can target 1 Ad to those 25 to 36, a different ad to those 37 to 50, and a different ad to those 51 to 100. All recruiting for the same position. AND This is a reasonable thing to do, because different humor, text, imagery, slogans, etc are likely to appeal to different age groups.

In fact.... you could say NOT targeting the ads by age is discriminatory, since you created an ad that only appeals to people 25 to 36, and older people will tend to ignore.

Exclude older workers?

[PPH]

That could backfire if they are trying to fill a position for senior staff curmudgeon.

Re:go home 1hb's are killing US workers that have

[Oswald McWeany]

go home 1hb's are killing US workers that have big student loans to pay off.

I'm not on a 1hb you racist prick! I'm a citizen and went through schooling here.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

As if...

[Anonymous Coward]

As if people needed another reason to enter erroneous information into Facebook.

and?

[jbmartin6]

Lots of big companies have recruiters visiting college campuses. I don't see them going to old folks home looking for interns and entry level recruits. Is that also against the law?

Re:and?

[oh_my_080980980]

Since you refused to read the article:
"The promotion was set to run on the Facebook feeds of users 25 to 36 years old who lived in the nation’s capital, or had recently visited there, and had demonstrated an interest in finance. For a vast majority of the hundreds of millions of people who check Facebook every day, the ad did not exist." https://www.propublica.org/art...
How's that ass-hole.

Re:and?

[gatkinso]

People in old folks homes are retired.

Re:Show the ads to recent grads. I'm 41, just grad

[Anonymous Coward]

Since an advertisement for a job opening doesn't constitute a job offer, nor does the posting or not posting of said advertisement constitute or imply discrimination based on a protected class, I fail to see how targeting ads at your most likely demographic for the ad can possibly be illegal. We don't sue housing developers in upscale neighborhoods for not buying or placing ads in low income neighborhoods, nor do we sue slumlords for not advertising their apartments in upscale newspapers. How is this any different at all?

Re:I like to put a fake age into online sites just

[Mal-2]

I do too. I always pick a date that, if I can't remember it, I can look up. July 20, 1969 (Apollo 11 lands on the moon), August 8, 1974 (Nixon resigns), January 28, 1986 (Challenger disaster), etc. -- things you can easily reference if forgotten -- make good fake birth dates, and people actually were born on those days, so how can they call you out on it?

So sick of the doublespeak

[Anonymous Coward]

"Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work,"

Here's what I read from this.

"Designing locks that can be opened with any key is beneficial for two reasons: its helps people feel safe and secure in their own home and it's it in line with current trends in this, the current year"

"Putting asbestos and rat poison into baby formula is an accepted practice in the food industry. It helps growing children's requirement for an asbestos-heavy diet while the nutrient-rich rat feces simultaneously helps a child's growing body."

I deleted by facebook account after this. Though it just sits there dormant, I will NEVER use it again.

uh huh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

" it [discrimination] helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work"

And day is night, black is white and good is evil. Orwellian NewSpeak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Ageism is incredibly short sighted

[gatkinso]

After all, one day we will all be that older worker - that is if we are lucky and manage to avoid buses, lightning bolts, and cancer.

This sort of practice just keeps getting worse and worse. Oh well. The ageism of today will be a loving caress compared to what those born in the '90's are going to deal with. When they are tossed out, I just hope they remember they had the chance to nip it in the bud.

Doesn't really matter

[sheph]

If a company wants to hire younger employees there are plenty of ways to do that. You'll know right away when you go to a company and most of the people there are young. They'll exclude you as unqualified off the bat, or if you do get an interview there are tons of ways to subjectively judge candidates. All they have to do is say the person they hired had a personality they felt was more compatible with their team. They'll never say we didn't hire you because we know you're probably going to retire in 10 years or less. Really you have to think about it from an employer's perspective too. Do you want to train someone who's going to leave in 10 years or 30? It's expensive. Now there's an argument to be made that the employee who's older has more experience requiring less training, but it really depends on the job. I'm not speaking about the fairness of it. Just pointing out reality.

Re:Doesn't really matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Really you have to think about it from an employer's perspective too. Do you want to train someone who's going to leave in 10 years or 30? It's expensive. Now there's an argument to be made that the employee who's older has more experience requiring less training, but it really depends on the job. I'm not speaking about the fairness of it. Just pointing out reality.

Reality is that young workers in tech are moving jobs about every 3.5 years on average - so very few companies are going to get that training return. Older workers, on the other hand, tend to stay at jobs longer - they are more likely to be looking for stability, due to the need to buy food and shelter for their families, pay for education of their kids, etc ...

Not every advertisement is targeted at tech, of course - but it is here that the training requirements are the greatest, and thus companies will need to get the highest return for their investment.

In short, reality supports the opposite of your argument.

In practice, a lot of the companies looking for younger workers are looking for people that are easier to exploit. This often creates big long term problems for the company - in many situations this is simply not sustainable. One huge exception involves government contractors - they often manage to pass the costs of failure, incompetence, or inefficiency on to the taxpayer. In other cases, the individuals in executive positions manage to pass the costs of bad policy onto the owners or stock-holders. Bribes to government, disguised as "campaign contributions" help insure that no inconvenient laws or regulation gets in the way.

Unfortunately US corporate, legal, and political culture allows executives to not only get away with decisions that are harmful to others, but actually to profit enormously from those decisions, often becoming extremely rich. It's really sleazy - as is the willingness of third parties such as advertisers to take a piece of the action. One wonders how so many people manage to grow up without integrity.

The applicable economics term is "negative externality" - referring to an economic activity that imposes a negative effect on an unrelated third party. It's like polluting the environment: in this case it's not the physical environment being polluted, but rather the general social, legal, economic, and work environment of society as a whole.

I suspect the current mess is something that has primarily evolved in response to the big government trend, and the willingness of politicians to mortgage the future by going into debt - thus creating a huge pool of money that the unscrupulous are trying to redirect into their own hands without providing real value in return. If true, that would be another blow against the rather dubious claim that government debt has no consequences - a claim often advanced by those who want government to spend more on their pet social programs.

Yeah, about that.

[Dawn Keyhotie]

"Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work," said Rob Douche-Nozzle, Facebook VP.

No, Mr. Douche-Nozzle. The way to recruit people of all ages is to target job ads at all age groups, or more accurately, target them at no specific age group. Nor at any demographic metric that falls mostly in a limited number of age groups, e.g. comic book readers.

What you are doing is illegal and harmful.

some wicked facebook doublespeak

[Anonymous Coward]

That is some crazy logic. How does it help people of all ages find work when only the targeted age group can see it? Sounds like the legal department wrote that response in preparation for the lawsuits.

Facebook LOVES age discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Zuck says that younger people are just smarter, and the average age there is 29.

Age discrimination at Facebook? Standard operating procedure.

facebook and the disney channel

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you change your age to 120+ years old they will ban you. It has nothing to do with identity so much as getting proper lab results. They have to prove all their age bias narcissism and will inflict it until they get the results they expect from this world.

Most of my college classmates we're over 30

[raymorris]

> ? How is this different than a job fair at college?

There are entry level jobs for new graduates. I'm 41 and I just graduated. Over half of the people I was in school with were over 30. "Recent graduate" != age 20-25. It's fine, I think, to target recent graduates.

  > Or at a senior center for that matter?

Right or wrong, it's LEGAL to seek people over 40, black people, and women. It's illegal to discriminate *against* these people, favoring whites, men, or young people. I don't necessarily agree that *should* be the law. Maybe it *should* be illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, but it is legal to target racial minorities for hiring, and it's legal to try to recruit older workers.

It's sad to me that I have to explain the US government, and 50% of voters, have decided that because she's "black" she needs "extra points" (a head start, pity points) in order to get into a good college. That they think black people are too stupid to compete with whites on an even footing is deeply offensive, but it's the law in America today. I have a dream that one day Americans will realize that the patronizing racism of saying black candidates, and women, need a head start in order to be able to compete for jobs or schools, that they can never simply be *better qualified* than any white male, is a more damaging form of racism and sexism than David Duke's "I hate black people" form. When Duke says "I hate you", my daughter can say "well fine, I hate you back", or even "I'll pray for you". When Hillary says, or implies, to my daughter "I feel sorry for you, I have pity for you because you're just a black woman, and can't do anything without my help", hearing that over and over, as official policy, strikes at my daughter's soul.

* PS the color of her skin is in fact brown, not anywhere near the color black. If you use the blur and color picker tool in Photoshop you'll discover Morgan Freeman and Oprah Winfrey have skin that's closer to WHITE than black. If you want to categorize people it "black" or "white" based on what color their skin is, we're all "white", so the entire concept is stupid.

Did I say they were around here?

[rsilvergun]

The right wing on /. mostly keeps to themselves. Right wing techies are generally smart enough to know they're being hypocritical when they demand protections for their class while denying those same protections to others. The ones I've confronted have been in real life. They generally concede the points while continuing the behavior. What's that phrase? Silent Majority? People embarrassed to admit their actual feelings. I knew a lot of closet Trump supporters. Folks who like the cut of his Jib but wouldn't say they were voting for him out loud. Those folks. I'm kind of sensitive to such things because I've got friends/family dependent on provisions of the ACA to live and if Trump wasn't so damn incompetent he'd have killed them by now so he and his buddies could pocket the money for their meds. So I hear things everybody else hears but I don't dismiss them. Yeah, I'm bitter, I'm angry. But unlike the alt-righters I didn't turn that anger on whatever convenient scape goat was handy.

Anyway I'm ranting at this point. The point is these folks know what they're doing is wrong, so you won't hear them saying it out loud. You'll hear dog whistles. Which is why that term exists.

Re:Show the ads to recent grads. I'm 41, just grad

[david_thornley]

The difference is that putting ads where we think they'll do the most good is fine, while just serving ads in a discriminatory manner isn't. If I'm in a low-income neighborhood, I can check out ads in upscale neighborhoods, no problem. If I'm black, and the ads are served only to white people, that is a problem.

Young People are Just Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the quote famously uttered by master Zuckerberg back in 2007.

So, it's not exactly a surprise to anyone that Facebook is age-biased. What I do find deliciously ironic is that herr wunderkind's words are now being used to hang him (https://nypost.com/2017/09/22/suit-claims-mark-zuckerberg-thinks-young-people-are-just-smarter/).

Young people thinking that they are smarter than old people is, in my opinion, just another aspect of the Dunning-Kruger effect: yes, you may very well think you are smarter, but it's only once you gain experience and truly do get smarter (and wiser) that you can begin to appreciate how much you over-estimated your intelligence in your youth.

The person who proclaims themselves to be smarter or better, rarely if ever is. Usually, the smartest people are the humblest because they actually are smart and know enough to know how little they know and can ever know.

Avoid using large fonts...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the problem takes care of itself.