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More Firms Used Facebook To Block Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Alleges (chicagotribune.com)
A proposed class-action lawsuit alleging Facebook's ad placement tools facilitate discrimination against older job-seekers has been expanded to identify additional companies. "When Facebook's own algorithm disproportionately directs ads to younger workers at the exclusion of older workers, Facebook and the advertisers who are using Facebook as an agent to send their advertisements are engaging in disparate treatment," a communications union alleged in the amended complaint, citing a legal test for employment discrimination, filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court. The union added claims under California's fair employment and unfair competition statutes to the lawsuit, which was initially filed in December. Chicago Tribune reports: The Communications Workers of America is suing on behalf of union members and other job seekers who allegedly missed out on employment opportunities because companies used Facebook's ad tools to target people of other ages. The original filing named defendants are Amazon.com Inc., Cox Media Group, Cox Communications Inc. and T-Mobile, as well as what the union estimates to be hundreds of employers and employment agencies who used Facebook's tools to filter out older job hunters when seeking to fill positions. The amended filing adds Ikea, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and the University of Maryland Medical System to its list of companies who allegedly used Facebook's tools to filter by age. Those three entities, as well as Facebook, aren't named defendants in the lawsuit.
The union alleged in its amended lawsuit that Facebook also uses age-filtering in ads intended to find its own new employees. In January, the union filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the alleged practice, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg News. The CWA says it has filed similar claims against dozens of companies, and that the agency has asked those employers, and Facebook, to respond to the allegations. An EEOC spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the existence of any complaints.
The union alleged in its amended lawsuit that Facebook also uses age-filtering in ads intended to find its own new employees. In January, the union filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the alleged practice, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg News. The CWA says it has filed similar claims against dozens of companies, and that the agency has asked those employers, and Facebook, to respond to the allegations. An EEOC spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the existence of any complaints.
Trump University says it's just smart to hire junior workers and pay them less. Old farts in their 30s and beyond care about too many unimportant things like family and work life balance.
Dumb fucks.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Not presenting an ad to someone does not block them from applying to a job.
Kind of hard to apply for a job you don't know exists.....
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
What is it about these companies (I'm a slightly past middle aged man myself at 38) that they do not want the workers who can actually create the products they desire? This obsession with scraping the bottom of the barrel, using immigrants, the young, the inept basically to formulate complex and towering architecture needed for a complex enough system to be worthy of sale. It makes no sense what so ever.
They are dooming their own bottom line, just look at microsoft since it has been hijacked by foreign interests their quality level has practically hit the concrete and cracked it trying to go further. All in the name of trying to save a buck and now Linux is gaining a foothold on the desktop like never before (and rightly so it is now a vastly superior product and worthy of the mantle of being #1). At the end of the day the collapse of microsoft is inevitable at this point it is simply so large (they have a warchest which is now being used as life support) that its death is taking a long time but it is moving towards its final stages of being torn apart for sell-off piece by piece like sears. I give it maybe 20 years, probably less as their influence and power continue to bleed away, you'll start to see them floudering really badly after a decade or so (it has already started, quality so bad that updates are only performed after crossing your fingers) and then the pieces will start falling off as it shambles to the end.
If I were a board member on these companies I would be screaming bloody murder about tossing out proper human tools for the formulation of these projects. It is not a 'nice to have' it is the only bloody way these things can see the light of day without being misshapen jokes of their intent. Billions perhaps even trillions are being spent by morons trying to do it as cheaply as possible.
It is like seeing an airline switching to planes made of rubber bands and donkeys on treadmills to make trans Atlantic crossings. You can just feel how unstable and unfinished these projects are increasingly becoming. A good example would be the canadian pheonix system which was rushed, made with cheap immigrant labor and has screwed the government of canada throwing it into chaos.
Time to make Facebook/Social Networks government-owned and privately operated.
Why can't people get it through their thick skulls that Facebook is a corporation? It does not have to cater to everyone equally. If Zuck wanted Facebook to only connect African women between the ages of 35 and 50, he could and there's not a damned thing anyone could do about it. Sure he would lose advertising revenue, but its HIS COMPANY.
You are ever so screwed if you need a job. Just get a sales job on full commission and hope like hell the economy doesnt go down the drain or the government doesnt change the market for your products away from your companies products.
Full commission no support no support net at all is the only way an over 50 can get any sort of job at all ever.
period.....
Signed
a 54 year old fully experienced fully educated to university level programmer, engineer, lead.
Tech companies have been finding ways to discriminate against older workers for years. It is no surprise that they now use Facebook to that end. Facebook, with its targeted ad infrastructure, makes it more subtle and easier for the companies to continue to discriminate.
All this attention to facebook and none to LinkedIN. Many companies recruit exclusively on LinkedIN.
And with all these social media sites, it's like if you don't sign up, you don't exist.
Of course, it's a no brainer to use the APIs of those sites to screen out undesirables.
No one will ever know.
This is disingenuous, they didn't use it to filter out older applicants, they used it to proactively go out and advertise for prospective applicants.
The law is pretty clear that the company has to treat all applicants fairly and without regard for age (or race, religion, gender, ...) and if they don't, they should absolutely be held accountable. But it's a huge stretch to say that, when advertising for potential employees that have not yet applied, they have to do so in a way that the advertisement is seen by everyone equally. I don't know that anyone has claimed that being shown a job ad is a right in this fashion.
Disparate treatment of whom? Not of applicants, because they are folks that haven't even applied.
Moreover, how is this different than buying an ad in Teen Vogue? Or on Reddit? AARP magazine? Ebony? Cosmo? Any of those magazines has a massively skewed age/race/gender balance. A natural reading of the claim would mean that advertising in any of those would (quoting the pleading, section 21): "unlawfully exclude [some protected class] of workers from receiving job ads and other recruitment information". Heck, by this logic, even posting a (paper) job offer on the (physical) bulletin board at a university is discriminatory, since it's overwhelmingly likely to be seen by 18-22 year olds and hence "excludes older workers".
And by the way, I don't see that any of the employers are accused of otherwise-hiding the job listing such that the Facebook ads were the only entry point. If that were shown (e.g. that they advertised but company.com/careers didn't actually have the same information) I would have a much different opinion. That would actually be excluding workers from applying for the job.
None of this is at all to say that there is no unlawful age (or race or gender or ...) discrimination. But targeted advertisements in conjunction with an open application process is not it.
But does one have the right to be informed of the existence of all open job positions?
If I wanted to hire for my business and just asked around my friends for recommendations/referrals without doing a "public" job offering, have I violated either the law or your sense of ethics?
For a big company, I would imagine that posting it at company.com/careers constitutes a fair public announcement for anyone that wishes to inquire.
At a job interview with Amazon they asked how many years experience did I have with Unix. When I replied over 25 years, one of them said how did you get 25 years and I said well I am 52, and I worked for Sun Micro. The lead said, "I wish you hadn't said that, now I can't hire you, too old". And it ended.
that is some next level stupidity
I think this is vile, but on the other hand, if a person is looking for jobs on Facebook, they probably got just what the doctor ordered. Go to industry specific sources instead (if you don't know what those are, you are not nearly involved enough in your industry) as Facebook isn't a great place to do anything but get data raped.
What about job ads in college newspapers or other print outlets with a young demographic?
What about radio/TV ads during shows with a young demographic?
Yes, Facebook ads are generally invisible to the non-targeted but that is eay to fix.
The big question is: Is it legal to posts job ads in a way that effectively targets one group at the expense of a protected class, even if members of that class can see the ad if they go out of their way to find it (e.g. reading college newspapers)?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Don't filter on age.
Filter on union membership.
But does one have the right to be informed of the existence of all open job positions?
If I wanted to hire for my business and just asked around my friends for recommendations/referrals without doing a "public" job offering, have I violated either the law or your sense of ethics?
For a big company, I would imagine that posting it at company.com/careers constitutes a fair public announcement for anyone that wishes to inquire.
The answer to your initial question is "no".
In the second question, it is not illegal (not advertised, and not a public offering), again not illegal.
That said, when you advertise a position in such a fashion to purposefully eliminate candidates due to a protected basis (such as Age, Gender, Race, etc), then it is illegal. US companies are not Vogon Constructor Fleets...
If I wanted to hire for my business and just asked around my friends for recommendations/referrals without doing a "public" job offering, have I violated either the law or your sense of ethics?
Depends. When you ask your friends for recommendations do you say "no one that can remember the 70s?" If so, then quite possibly yes, you have violated the law. If these companies are focusing on one class of people over another based on a criteria that is not inherently necessary to the job function then they are definitely breaking the spirit of the law, if not necessarily the letter.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Let's substitute "older" with "black" or "Jewish" and see if it changes your feelings on the matter. I find that's a useful way to gauge something like this.
Personally, I think that companies that limit their potential pool of applicants and talent for any reason are just shooting themselves in the foot, unless you want to argue that older applicants are less qualified. In some cases they may not have exposure to the latest languages, frameworks, etc. but 20 years of experience is worth a lot in its own way.
The other part of me thinks that these companies want young employees fresh out of college that they can work like a dog for a few years before casting them off. Older employees aren't anywhere near as willing to put up with that shit and likely have life commitments outside of work that don't afford them the opportunity to slog through 60 work weeks.
Nobody wants to hire old people. Nobody. They are difficult to work with, won't stay beyond working outs, don't fit in with the younger workforce, lack in flexibility and they take forever to learn anything new. Yes, I know there are exceptions but in this economy we cannot waste time and resources looking for the rare gem on the garbage. The whole "experience" angle is overplayed, most older workers' experience has no relevance. We do things differently. Younger is better, it's that simple. I know not everybody has the scope to understand and accept this, but there is no more place in the modern workforce for the over-30. Let's not delude them into thinking otherwise.
But does one have the right to be informed of the existence of all open job positions?
Potentially, yes. You may not know it, but the public posting of jobs is considered a means to avoid discrimination, favoritism and other unethical actions.
If I wanted to hire for my business and just asked around my friends for recommendations/referrals without doing a "public" job offering, have I violated either the law or your sense of ethics?
Absolutely. You've pretty much guaranteed that you are only selecting from those who you like like, which is a common problem.
For a big company, I would imagine that posting it at company.com/careers constitutes a fair public announcement for anyone that wishes to inquire.
If that was all they did, that'd be a possible argument, but...wait friend, that isn't all they did.
And really, it wouldn't be a great argument, since that wouldn't be affirmative action. It'd be a matter of "We didn't provably intend to discriminate" rather than "We did discriminate" but sometimes the standard is "This is how we sought to avoid discrimination" in order to reach the necessary ethical standard.
Kind of hard to apply for a job you don't know exists.....
Why would Facebook be your goto job-hunting source? It is close to my last choice, right above maybe the help-wanted ads in the old fashioned physical newspaper thing.
Honestly now that linked-in has become pretentious facebook I can hardly use that anymore, but even LinkedIn isn't the best source, even ignoring MS having taken over. Most of the jobs through these sources are the kinds of things where they collect your resume, find a reason to not hire you to justify their cheaper H1B hire, and use your resume as evidence. They just need a lot of applicants, and it's easier to find unqualified ones by broadcasting their openings in unlikely places. Facebook job hunting: If you wouldn't shit where you eat, don't go to eat where people shit.
You're way better off, if you have >10 years, using your peers and former coworkers. Often there is cash incentive to refer you, so they'll be on-board. After that, start looking around in popular industry websites/material/etc.
It all depends on how you are doing it; if you specifically filter on age (or likely high school/college graduation date or other probable indicators of age), then you will get in trouble.
We use Toaster or some other random named job board system that is popular with the young'uns and colleges these days. Most of the candidates have 0.5-2.5 years of experience in our field, which is something we are targeting for some positions.
Other positions we want 10-30 years of experience. Our average age is well over 40, although median is closer to 35 I would guess-- so we aren't likely candidates to have job bias complaints. Once our two 78+ employees retire we might take a closer look though...
In other words, whether or not your action is a crime depends on your thoughts during the act.
Which makes it a thought-crime
No, it does not. The thought of discrimination against an older person is the motivation behind your act, but it is the act itself that is illegal. Let's take your logic: I break into a house to steal something. The owner is home and I end up killing them. I didn't plan to kill them, therefore I am not guilty of murder because it wasn't my thought to kill them.
Thought crime is when you can be arrested simply for having a thought or an idea. Once you have moved beyond thought into action, you are no longer in thought crime territory but actual crime territory. And this happens regularly during criminal proceedings, for example when to attach hate crime charges. A white guy beats up a black guy, and it's assault. The white guy says white supremacist/derogatory things while beating up the black guy? That speaks to his motivations for the crime and lends evidence towards a hate crime.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If I post a job advertisement in Elle magazine, am I (given I know the demographics of Elle's readership) discriminating against men? Similarly, if Rolex posts in ad in The Economist, are they discriminating against non-white folks? Does an ad placed in Noir discriminate against the same white folks who benefit from the ad in The Economist?
Firms already target their ads, where do you propose we draw the line?
"mens rea" is such an old idea that it's literally in latin
I guess the question is: whose problem is that?
Is everyone expected to be fully in the market and aware of all their options? Because I usually don't do (nearly!) enough to stay informed about all the opportunities out there. If employers are going to be found at fault for not finding all possible employees, am I going to be found at fault for the same thing when I fail to apply somewhere where I could have been used? That would suck if I got sued for not noticing a job offer.
"We're suing you for not applying at our company because we're too old."
"WTF, who are you? I never heard of you!"
"Exactly. That's why we're suing you."
for H1B no you can't make it an non public job posting
What about the discrimination on the part of potential employers against applicants who simply don't use social media at all, and therefore aren't on FB? That can't be fixed by any action on the part of FB or partners. It's also difficult to prove, grossly unfair, and pretty much impossible to do anything about in the absence of legislation and a serious effort at enforcement.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
That's why when I'm looking for a job, I'm actually LOOKING for a job and not surfing facebook and wait for job ads to pop up.
bickerdyke
young kids don't have the experience to say no or that will not work.
The employer would have to specify on Facebook what age group to target. If they specified anything that excluded anyone of working age then that was intentional discrimination.
This is an example of the screen they would see (ignore big red arrow):
https://www.socialmediaexamine...
for H1B no you can't make it an non public job posting
The locked filing cabinet in the basement is "public"....
And older employees actually tend to use things like Vacation (follows your comments) and their health insurance. I admit as an older worker that's around about 50%+ 20 somethings where I work I"m enjoying reasonably priced benefits. Also older workers may be higher up on the pay scale as well.
Actually, in OP's post, it depends if you explicitly excluded (discriminated) a set of people, not 'thought' about it. If you don't verbalize it or share that information, you're protected by your 5th amendment right and there is no contrary evidence, leaving much doubt leaning heavily towards innocence.
In my opinion, specifically targeting the opposite of an explicit exclusion is also discrimination. The purpose/spirit of the law is to make sure people can work, be compensated, and contribute to society regardless of attributes like age. Just because you found a hole in the legal language that doesn't explicitly restrict you (or enable you), that doesn't mean what youre doing isn't breaking the intent of the law. This is why we have Judges and courts to pickup those holes and a legislation process to fill in those gaps. Unfortunately, that process favors the wealthy and not your average person.
E.g, given a set S = {A, B, C, ..., Z}, the case of discrimination of 'A' (removing them from the pool) is something akin to !A = {B, C, ..., Z}. If one instead heavily targets {B, C, ..., Z}, you may get the set S' = {0.01*A, B, C, ..., Z} which achieves approximately the same goal, !A ~= S', just a different approach to get there by skirting language in law by not excluding all 'A' explicitly (leaving doubt in the courts, aka covering your ass). Now, the sets are no exactly the same (by intent to hide discrimination) but it's pretty darn close and the overall results are approximately the same.
Like murder. "I thought he was trying to kill me, so it was self-defense" vs "I didn't like the look of his face."
But does one have the right to be informed of the existence of all open job positions?
That's not the problem, the issue is the pay-per-view model that Facebook uses.
If you advertise a job on Monster or some other job site you pay for the time it is displayed there. Doesn't matter how many people view it, so there is really no point in them offering to hide it from certain demographics.
If you advertise a job on Facebook you pay for impressions and click-throughs. So advertising to demographics that you have no intention of hiring costs you money. Of course, if you don't care about the applicant's age there is no problem, but if you do then Facebook offers handy tools to save you some cash.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Even a lot of older people can't remember the 70's....
If I post a job advertisement in Elle magazine, am I (given I know the demographics of Elle's readership) discriminating against men?
Yes.
Similarly, if Rolex posts in ad in The Economist, are they discriminating against non-white folks?
Yes.
Does an ad placed in Noir discriminate against the same white folks who benefit from the ad in The Economist?
I don't know if they're the same, I lack that particular information. It does discriminate though, yes.
Firms already target their ads, where do you propose we draw the line?
There's more than one line.
> There's more than one line.
OK, how many lines are there and where do we draw them?
you must be millennial and don't get it .... When company is advertising advertise to all age groups equally.
Now you're getting into motive, not thought crime.
In the case of breaking into a house and unintentionally killing the owner, you have killed someone, they will use motive to determine the degree. It could be "minor" offense like manslaughter or the highest level of "terrorism" depending on what the court thinks your motive was.
The important distinction though is that until you DID something no crime was done. Having a bad thought is not a crime, performing a "bad" action is.
Interesting conundrum. What are the possible solutions?
What a terrible, stupid argument... How the fuck are you so god damn idiotic?
> Firms already target their ads, where do you propose we draw the line?
Targeting ads isn't necessarily the same as excluding others from viewing them. Your job posting may be viewed by anyone who reads Elle, even if they aren't part of Elle's target demo. Your job posting on Facebook will not be shown to anyone 35+ if you specifically request it only go to 18-34. There is no "flipping through a copy in the waiting room at the dentist's office" equivalent on Facebook. That's where the line is.
They aren't allowed to ask, but if they can trick you into providing it ...
One of my best guys left us to work for Amazon. I think it was a good move for him and hope it worked out well for him and his family. Another guy left to work at Google. We had 1 guy join us from Apple. He had an interesting view about technologies from that time.
I generally get to the interview stage fairly quickly, usually under a week, but that's partially because I filter by role, pay and locations. For my last 4 positions, I was hired within 1 day of the interview. For 3 of those hires I'd never been to the company at all. We did phone interviews - even for 2 in the same metro area.
Actually, my first "real job" I was hired without visiting the worksite too. Best job I ever had from a coolness factor. It has padded my resume nicely for decades. "NASA" opens doors.
No advanced degree. No high-powered parents or friends. Just people like the resume and I'm not anti-social in the interviews or later. I don't post crap on social media; had a stalker in the early 2000s who taught me much.
There have been interviews that totally failed too.
I'd been doing architecture work for a year and someone wanted me to write a SQL outer join. After all, SQL was on my list of technologies, so I should be an expert. Couldn't do it, but I knew where to look it up. That wasn't good enough, I suppose. The tone of the interview completely changed at that point. They were an audio streaming startup - think they failed. May have "pivoted", can't tell in an incubator from the outside.
About a year later, I was interviewing for an architect position at the primary credit card processing company in the USA. Interview went well, they decided to test my "C" programming skills. I hadn't done any C in 10+ yrs by that point, but sat behind a Windows computer and read through the test. I hadn't done Windows C++ programming in at least 5 yrs and we didn't use the IDE/compiler they were providing. I'd done Unix C++ for about a decade. Decided it wasn't worth their or my time, got up and walked out. If they wanted a C programmer, I wasn't the guy. I can certainly read C and spot issues, but that wasn't the test. At the time, people with my skills were in very high demand, so these positions, while interesting had the wrong recruitment techniques for me.
There are 50 technologies/buzzwords listed on my resume because I've used them at different levels. I'm familiar with them and could quickly come back up to speed, but at this point, I expect to be hired for untestable skills, and drop down to the weeds only when needed.
It is not a necessary requirement. There are so many other avenues of employment anyone could lose count.
> Let's take your logic: I break into a house to steal something. The owner is home and I end up killing them. I didn't plan to kill them, therefore I am not guilty of murder because it wasn't my thought to kill them.
This is an insignificant detail, since home invasion is an attribute to homicide that mandates utmost punishment (execution or life in prison without parole) in every normal country.
It is not illegal to not hire an older person. It is precisely my thoughts about it, that may make the not-hiring illegal.
That's not a thought crime though. Once you have taken the action of not hiring that person (yes, for those of you are trying to be pedantic, not acting is still acting) because they are old you have committed an actual, physical crime. Your thought is the motive for the crime.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
We are simply out of good ideas. In the past we did things like invent desktop publishing or the internet.
The technology titans today are selling cat videos to get people to look at ads.
Just beware of the leopard.
There is a difference between posting an ad somewhere it is unlikely to be seen by particular demographics, and posting it somewhere it is impossible to be seen by particular demographics because they are being actively blocked from seeing it.
Kind of hard to apply for a job you don't know exists.....
Why would Facebook be your goto job-hunting source? It is close to my last choice, right above maybe the help-wanted ads in the old fashioned physical newspaper thing.
You are looking at this wrong. In this case Facebook isn't a job-hunting source, it is an employee recruitment source. Companies are paying for ads advertising their open positions, and the allegation is that these companies are using Facebook's ad-targeting data to only serve ads to people who are younger and presumably cheaper. It will be interesting to see how the court interprets the anti-discrimination laws in this case, especially if they are able to show in court precisely what criteria was used to determine who to serve the ad to.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
behind the sign saying "beware of leopard"
Advertisers that specifically buy space in those magazines are surely "filtering based on a protected class".
Pointless theoretical argument. Companies don't advertise jobs in those kinds of magazines. Period. They do advertise other things, but those are not protected against discrimination like jobs and real estate are.
And, yes, most HR and real estate people do indeed consider the mix of media buys when planning advertising campaigns. That's because back in the days when companies did advertise jobs in newspapers & magazines, there were discrimination lawsuits because a pattern of job advertising venue choices in effect discriminated against a protected class. You or I may personally take issue with outcome-based rulings and laws like that, but that is the law at this time.
You are welcome to boycott companies discriminating based on any trait you find important, but it should not be illegal.
Why not? I am seriously asking here. When the government is by, for, and of the people, it seems perfectly acceptable to go "we the people are sick and tired of boycotting the same businesses for the same things every other week. We demand a law which says they can't do X so that we can go on with our god-damned lives".
I see comments on this subject all the time claiming that older tech workers can't keep up with current technology, and that's the reason companies are excluding them and trying to get rid of them. That's not the reason; the real reason is the oldest reason of all: money. Older = more experienced = worth more = demands more pay. I've got more than one friend who works or used to work for a tech company tell me that they're getting rid of older experienced and competent people in favor of young graduates with little to no experience simply because they can pay them peanuts comparatively speaking because they're eager enough to get ANY job that they'll accept low pay. Then there's the workers imported from overseas who likewise will work for peanuts because it's still more than they'd get in their home countries.
As a sidebar to this, you want the real reason the United States is falling behind the curve on innovation? It's because of the above. Get rid of the experienced people and expect a bunch of kids with little to no experience to just, what, absorb 30+ years of experience through osmosis? Yeah sure that'll work (wait, no it doesn't!). It used to be that experience was always greater than any piece of paper hanging on the wall. That doesn't seem to be true anymore and it's hurting everyone.
I tell sites I am 22. Employers are thrilled when they find out I also have 30 years of experience; except those trying to prove there are no viable citizen/resident candidates.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
They must have meant "block younger people". All old people are on Facebook.
By that line of reasoning, there should be no laws against libel or slander, or fraud, or or any distinction between first degree and second degree murder or manslaughter - anything where intent is a key element to the charge. Which is obviously ridiculous.
Woah guy. Your analogy is flawed beyond belief. Here is a better analogy. Two men kill someone in self defense. One of those men calls the attacker (who they kill) a racial epitaph. The other guy says nothing. Both men did the same thing but one of them will probably be tried for a hate crime and the other probably won't be charged at all (since it's self defense).
Now you're getting into motive, not thought crime.
How is motive not thoughts before or during the act?
The important distinction though is that until you DID something no crime was done. Having a bad thought is not a crime, performing a "bad" action is.
Correct - not wanting to hire an older person is not an offense, nor is hiring a young person even though you don't mind hiring an older person. Taking the action of not hiring someone because they are older IS an offense. It's not the thought that is the offense, it's the thought and the action together.
The thought police are moderating you down but I get it. If a person simply hires less old people, they can't be charged with a crime. If that person admits they hire less old people because they are old, they can be charged with a crime. It's not the action that makes it illegal, but the motivation becoming public.
What kind of person fills in the race question on Facebook? Like I need to provide a globalist organization with more ways to discriminate against me.
Health benefits. Unless you are in the biggest of risk pools (large state, Fortune 100) the policies can have rates that scale with age (and sex). If you are a health insurer, the best pool of subscribers is 18-40 year old males. They pays their money and they takes their chances. And don't have pap smears or kids.
There are lots of carve outs for stuff like this. Many companies can't get insurance policies that are offer different prices for various patient classes. But there are enough of them that can do that and since insurance and benefits can equal salary for employees, you can bet the companies look very carefully at this.
Which is just one (of many) reasons why continuing to base medical insurance on employment is batshit insane.
Welcome to our world.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
My friends are all in their 30s and most their acquaintances are in their 30s. So without saying or intending that, this procedure is a) not visible to the majority of job seekers of any age and b) mostly excludes those that can remember the 70s just by virtue of the social circle to which the question went.
That's the point -- I've cast a net out for prospective employees but done so in a way that targets a particular demographic.
What's more, in this hypothetical, I haven't posted the job anywhere else. So if you are not an acquaintance of one of mine, you literally cannot find out about this job.
If the law makes this is illegal, I'd be quite surprised.
Facebook has already been busted for allowing advertisers to filter out Jewish people and black people in certain housing ads (and targeting ‘jew haters’ in others!). I’m pretty certain this precedent will work against them and they’ll be cited/punished for this as well.
https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-discrimination-housing-race-sex-national-origin
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-ads-targeting-jew-haters-propublica-report/
Exactly. Men will buy Elle, if that is where the good jobs are listed.
My friends are all in their 30s and most their acquaintances are in their 30s. So without saying or intending that, this procedure is a) not visible to the majority of job seekers of any age and b) mostly excludes those that can remember the 70s just by virtue of the social circle to which the question went.
That's the point -- I've cast a net out for prospective employees but done so in a way that targets a particular demographic.
What's more, in this hypothetical, I haven't posted the job anywhere else. So if you are not an acquaintance of one of mine, you literally cannot find out about this job.
If the law makes this is illegal, I'd be quite surprised.
Again, it depends. In your specific example, the criteria preventing people from getting hired is you (or by extension, your friends) don't know the (potential) applicant. You are not (by reasonable assumption) explicitly avoiding people based upon a protected class and would presumably hire someone that is qualified and in a protected class.
Now, if one of your friends said his 45 year old next door neighbor just got downsized and needs a job, but is a good worker and qualified for the job and your response is "hell no, no one over 40" then yes, you've got an issue on your hands. Of course the usual defense for that is "It's not because he is old, we just feel that the salary we are offering (near-slave or starvation level) would be less than what he would ask for (because he's old)"
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If what you're saying were true, the young, dumb, and inexperienced wouldn't be able to execute. The old and experienced would simply band together and dominate whatever business/market/industry and put the young and their companies out of business permanently.
That isn't happening. The young companies are in fact innovating, are in fact executing, and the old people are just getting grumpier.
I say this as an increasingly grumpy old person with seemingly no prospects.
Burglars don't kill unintentionally.
They bring a weapon, in case someone is there even though they didn't react to the doorbell. They brought a gun, the planned to kill 'if need be'.
No, no. I can remember the '70s just fine. It's what I did 15 minutes ago that I have trouble remembering.
If I wanted to hire for my business and just asked around my friends for recommendations/referrals without doing a "public" job offering, have I violated either the law or your sense of ethics?
Nope, but that's not what these companies are doing. They are publicly offering the job, but intentionally excluding certain age groups from seeing the offer. There's no duty for them to make sure you see an ad, but there is a duty for them not to specifically exclude you from viewing it.
No, it does not. The thought of discrimination against an older person is the motivation behind your act, but it is the act itself that is illegal
It is not illegal to not hire an older person. It is precisely my thoughts about it, that may make the not-hiring illegal.
Yes, intent matters. Is this news to you, mi?
I didn't plan to kill them, therefore I am not guilty of murder because it wasn't my thought to kill them.
Bullshit. Such killing is a crime whether or not you thought of it in advance — although such thinking may make it premeditated, thus increasing the gravity of the offense.
Well, the actual crime mentioned was "murder" which is a case of intent and thus whether or not it was premeditated means your thoughts matter.
Howeveer, in this case(vague and undefined as it is), I believe many places would consider it felony homicide, which doesn't even require the person to have done anything with killing effect or intent.
Just that a death occurred.
But not hiring anyone is not a crime, unless it can be proven — and the standards of evidence conveniently vary depending on politics — that you had illegal thoughts.
Standards of evidence always vary, don't like it? Well, in the case of human beings, come up with an objective mind-reading device.
Can't do it? Can't get the human element out of the trial system?
Too bad.
The contents of my thoughts determines, whether the very same action is a crime. Ergo, thought-crime.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
for at least 15 years, maybe longer. As far as I can tell they seem to be winning.
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Lying is wrong, Murder is wrong. Intent may be important to determining the gravity of the wrongness. But it should not decide, whether it is wrong at all.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Even a lot of older people can't remember the 70's....
I guess you could argue that if you remember the 70s you were either very young, very old, or you did the 70s very wrong.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Posting ads in a printed newspaper blocks younger job seekers.
Posting ads on a community notice board at the supermarket blocks online grocery shoppers seeking jobs.
etc...
Well done, you've created your own definition.
Right now, motive and intent are given enormous weighting in the determination of the severity of a crime. Nothing new there. Your new definition of "thought crime" includes actual crimes where motive and intent are a significant factor, which is practically all serious crimes.
The conventional use of the term "thought crime" indicates the criminalization of thought alone - which is a useful term. Expanding it to include practically all serious crime reduces its usefulness to close to zero.
Lying is wrong, Murder is wrong. Intent may be important to determining the gravity of the wrongness. But it should not decide, whether it is wrong at all.
Right or wrong is merely window dressing for the masses. If a child "accidentially" kills a person by their act and they aren't charged with a crime is it not "wrong"?
Most people think that refusing to considering hiring people of a particular race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, age, physical disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status is wrong, too. Thus their protected status (sexual orientation in some states, everything else federally).
Of course, if you don't care about the applicant's age there is no problem, but if you do then Facebook offers handy tools to save you some cash.
Sure, you save cash by getting to hire cheap labor by avoiding directly discriminating against applicants... ;^)
Or did you mean in the advertising bill for impressions?
All the same, you save some cash right
That's why when I'm looking for a job, I'm actually LOOKING for a job and not surfing facebook and wait for job ads to pop up.
I don't think you know how it works. Today, the ad platform is looking for you, you aren't looking for ads...
The intent is the same. You are impermissibly using a criterion for recruitment. You may not discriminate on the basis of age in hiring.
"if Rolex posts in ad in The Economist, are they discriminating against non-white folks"
No, they are discriminating against the "less wealthy".
Understood that many whites are wealthy, but many many more whites are "less wealthy".
Further there is a distribution within non-whites of wealthy, "less wealthy".
emt 377 emt 4
I am the one modded to -1 because most people hate the truth.
Do you have evidence this position was not also posted publicly? Many companies will send their job offers to the local equivalent of a job bank, a government service that lists the job so anyone can apply.
They also additionally put the job in ads where they believe candidates will see them, because job banks suck.
You seem to believe this is the ONLY place the company posted the job. I very highly doubt that.
One of those men calls the attacker (who they kill) a racial epitaph. The other guy says nothing. Both men did the same thing but one of them will probably be tried for a hate crime
I'm pretty sure writings on tombstones are not a protected class.
Is this same as my employer only hiring non-white non-male employees, even if far less qualified than males in the same pay range?
If I've posted the job on company.com/careers, anyone can casually "flip through" the open positions there.
And so you have your EEO complaint leading to expensive settlement for the company...
If only it were that easy.
Can he prove it? (It's really hard when you're a white guy.)
Amazon, "No. He doesn't have the skills. We weren't discriminating based on age."
And keep in mind that lawsuits are public record. Meaning, good luck getting another job.
If you ONLY advertise in Elle, yes. If you also place a similar amount of advertising in GQ, no.
Talking about advertising a Rolex is a false equivalence. Demographic targeting of goods is legal pretty much across the board, though refusing to sell goods to people in a protected category is not. Demographic advertising of JOBS is another matter. There are laws prohibiting job ads that exclude a protected category, with the exception of jobs where it's an actual job qualification. (Thus you can advertise for actors of a specific race, exclude men from a job as a lingerie fitter or a women's locker room attendant, etc.)
The legal question that will be answered by the cases about Facebook filtering is whether using a medium that allows selective targeting of job advertising to keep people in a protected category from seeing your job ads is legally equivalent to placing ads that exclude that category. It's a bit different than the situation with Elle magazine; a man could pick up that magazine and look for job listings, but he couldn't do the equivalent thing with Facebook except by setting up a second account that appeared to belong to a woman. That's a bit trickier than it seems; you can choose your age and gender when you set up the account, but they will also use their Big Data to try to figure out those things (and others, like political orientation and whether you have children) and target your advertising accordingly.
There's more than one line.
These guys know all about the lines you are referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.