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.

Comments

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Hillary lost, Mueller hasn't found anything on Trump, and the DoJ IG is about to drop a few large turds into "progressive" punch bowls all over the US.

Get over it.

Operation Crossfire Hurricane

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Democratic Party troll... are they paying you to distract us from Spygate? Thanks to our beloved President we now know the FBI tried to rig the election and the so-called "Russia investigation" is just a smoke screen.

Thought-crimes

[mi]

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.

In other words, whether or not your action is a crime depends on your thoughts during the act.

Which makes it a thought-crime. Anti-discrimination laws should be abolished. You are welcome to boycott companies discriminating based on any trait you find important, but it should not be illegal.

Re:Thought-crimes

[mi]

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.

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.

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.

Re:Smart

[stealth_finger]

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.

Hillary lost, Mueller hasn't found anything on Trump, and the DoJ IG is about to drop a few large turds into "progressive" punch bowls all over the US.

Get over it.

Trump is a fucking idiot and any american who actually voted for him needs to have a word with themselves. Not saying you should've voted for Clinton but you never should have let Trump get that far. Jokers, the lot of you.