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

Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

Didnt even bother to read the article because the summary itself is trash.

Blocked means you can't do an action. Not presenting an ad to someone does not block them from applying to a job.

Fix the title and I will read. Otherwise, clickbait.

Re:Wrong word

[Nidi62]

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.....

Re:Wrong word

[Wrath0fb0b]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Wrong word

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[alvinrod]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Austerity Empowers]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[aaarrrgggh]

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...

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of hard to apply for a job you don't know exists.....

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."

Re:Wrong word

[bickerdyke]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[JMJimmy]

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...

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[freeze128]

Even a lot of older people can't remember the 70's....

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

> There's more than one line.

OK, how many lines are there and where do we draw them?

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be millennial and don't get it .... When company is advertising advertise to all age groups equally.

Re: Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

You're literally retarded.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Bryansix]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[ColdWetDog]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Wrath0fb0b]

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.

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.

Re: Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Men will buy Elle, if that is where the good jobs are listed.

Re:Wrong word

[Nidi62]

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)"

Re:Wrong word

[jbengt]

No, no. I can remember the '70s just fine. It's what I did 15 minutes ago that I have trouble remembering.

Re:Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[slew]

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 ;^)

Re:Wrong word

[slew]

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...

Re:Wrong word

[worldthinker]

The intent is the same. You are impermissibly using a criterion for recruitment. You may not discriminate on the basis of age in hiring.

Re:Wrong word

[Duhavid]

"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".

Re: Wrong word

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Wrong word

[stinkyjak]

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?

Re:Wrong word

[Wrath0fb0b]

If I've posted the job on company.com/careers, anyone can casually "flip through" the open positions there.

Re:Wrong word

[Shirley Marquez]

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.

Re:Wrong word

[Hylandr]

There's more than one line.

These guys know all about the lines you are referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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.

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow, we are blaming Trump for ageism now?

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Obama

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.

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.

And the ones in their 70s care about accumulating power, giving jobs to their kids and playing golf.

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.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, Trump acts like an idiot, but the results of his work as president has been a surprise to me. I voted for Gary Johnson and I got a libertarianish president anyways. How liberals and Progressives like you have behaved since the election has totally turned me off to Democrats. I no longer even consider Democrats when I vote. Good job children.

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't blame Trump specifically for that, but I would certainly blame the political and cultural movement he's truly associated with (_not_ your middle class workers), and stands as its figurehead, as being responsible for ageism.

How's that "hire Americans" and "reducing H-1B abuse" (modern indentured servitude) movement working out? Doesn't look so good to me, since the exact opposite is happening.

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say I know a lot of 70 year olds in that group. Many I've seen can barely afford a "pot to piss in" and are abandoned in nursing homes or poor living conditions with neglected healthcare because they're not considered useful anymore. Some are doing OK. Many are responsible for the wealth inequality gap that we continue to accept as a society which we can change during a single election period but fail to do so because were sparse and disorganized as a group

We might as well just skip worrying about ageism and just euthanize everyone at age 50, it'll be better for many companys' bottom line and our country will be more efficient. There will of course be exceptions to the rule for the wealthy stakeholders who manage the under 50 worker force since their experience is invaluable and irreplaceable... so they have no euthanasia date.

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Unemployment is at a 17 year low.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

H-1Bs have been going down. What the hell are you talking about?

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/12/technology/h-1b-visa-applications-2018/index.html

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the most harrowing thing to come out of this, is that some people are actually thinking (!?) of Trump as libertarian, as opposed to simply corrupt.

Small government and corrupt government aren't the same thing. This president has one mission: to access the US treasury however he can. We're dealing with a thief, not a civil rights advocate.

Democrats aren't the issue. The problem is that so few people voted for Johnson.

I don't blame leftists for voting the way that they did, because both Clinton and Trump are pretty far to the left. (Trump's interference with markets is in the news every day, now that the tariff game is on). Leftist voters were just being true to themselves when they voted for Trump/Clinton. They merely need to be more exposed to government waste, and they'll start to question.

But right-leaning people had absolutely no reason to vote for Trump, and they did it anyway. Those people have some explaining to do, because most of them knew they were mostly voting for corruption and keeping political ideals out of it (except for a few minor ideals, such as .. wait, racism?! Of all the political "ideals" to back, you went for something stupid?). Republican voters are a problem and conservatives need to do something about those people, before they ever need to worry about Democrats. Democrats are easy; they can be won over, through reason. But Republicans think reason is the enemy.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you say, comrade. BTW, have you and Natasha captured Moose and Squirrel, yet?

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

SJW tards like you need a proper face-smashing. Trotsky slut ya smell like Bantu sewage, like an ISIS ape ... know what I mean Loretta? Lots a pissed-off brownshirts ready to deal-that-out ... cause THEDONALD won and THEDONALD gonna win again grinding over your bleeding carcass. See ya in-the-street bitchboi when you get beat-down like mud-people & clobbered under our bootheels.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you say, comrade. BTW, have you and Natasha captured Moose and Squirrel, yet?

Stupid fucking paid-for progtard troll?

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

You are why we have Trump.

Re:Smart

[Bryansix]

Junior worker has nothing to do with age; it has to do with experience in the job they are applying for.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the whole thing as a crap show, Hillary literally buying the DNC, and Trump was the only real wild card. In their panic they turned to someone they didnt fully understand.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

More than that, Hillary actually encouraged others to prop Trump up as the "guy to beat". Hilarious how that worked out, yet these brown-shirt bootlickers think Hillary would have done a better job........

Re:Smart

[jbengt]

I voted for Gary Johnson and I got a libertarianish president anyways.

W T F ?

Re: Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

except the exact opposite of the "exact opposite" you're claiming is happening. Keep reading HuffPo and Salon.

Re: Smart

[sfcat]

And the ones in their 70s care about accumulating power, giving jobs to their kids and playing golf.

I can't say I know a lot of 70 year olds in that group. Many I've seen can barely afford a "pot to piss in" and are abandoned in nursing homes or poor living conditions with neglected healthcare because they're not considered useful anymore. Some are doing OK. Many are responsible for the wealth inequality gap that we continue to accept as a society which we can change during a single election period but fail to do so because were sparse and disorganized as a group

The OP was describing Trump...and now that I've explained the joke, its no longer funny.

Re:Smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump: The Most Libertarian President Since Silent Cal

Someone *TRUSTED* Facebook?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

*looks at Microsoft*

Their stock is way up, and that is all they care about. Nothing else matters to them. Hope you saved some money.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that older workers suddenly become very attractive for lower-wage jobs in certain areas where minimum wage is skyrocketing. With the caveat that there are always exceptions to broad generalizations, older workers generally tend to be far less difficult to deal with and perform their responsibilities better and without babysitting. Younger workers generally tend to be a pain in the ass and once you're paying premium prices for workers in your field, you're going to tend to expect premium quality work in exchange. Tech work tends to be well above minimum wage which may explain why the preference for older workers hasn't set in. Management at a tech firm isn't pressured to boost worker productivity (and may have a harder time measuring productivity in the first place because extra lines of code doesn't mean they're good lines of code) so they gladly hire college degree wielding young blood that is perceived to be cheaper, more eager, and that makes those managers feel like they're part of younger and more trendy crowd. It isn't until they've been there a while that the activist-y crap appears and the navel-gazing and social-browsing time sinking really takes over. Older people last beyond the honeymoon; younger people start trying to force the company to fit their mold and eventually job searching for the next place to fly off to.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[NicknameUnavailable]

Haven't you heard? Everyone is equal: that means whoever charges the least will produce just as well as those who charge the most and old people are going to care about a personal life and benefits in addition to having the experience to negotiate for better compensation and defend their stances, while a fresh dev will do 80+ hours a week on an entry level salary until they burn out. It's cheaper for them to buy out small innovative corporations who take on all the risk of R&D (seen in contrast to the number of small innovative corporations which go under before getting bought out) and just hire a bunch of hacks to daisychain it all together.

Re: Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I do not own any stock with them, or even use their operating system anymore. I used too though and brought it up because it was an example of tossing out all the talent and watching the whole thing turn into a puddle of diarrhea. Stock prices do not always reflect reality, they more reflect what people "gut feel" reality is, and peoples gut feeling is that microsoft is dominant, strong, well financed, and competent. The reality is that they are getting increasingly incompetent, are failing in multiple markets, becoming irrelevant with the march of time in others, and their crown jewel operating system which the whole company is founded on is an un-stable pile of trash at this point that I could no longer continue to use. I didn't stop because I hate microsoft (I do) but I always use the best software to get work down and at this point in time that is linux hands down. A lot of other people are feeling the way I do, I tend to be ahead of these trends as are most of us here, but the general population usually follows behind us about 3-5 years later.

If they would cease tossing away talented workers because of discriminatory reasons or pushing out workers for cheap immigrant labor which cannot perform the tasks required they wouldn't be in this situation right now.

Microsoft was just an example though, this affects far more than them reaching into multiple name brand companies. I also brought up the pheonix system for Canada which again is a prime example of sloppy untalented work turning everything into garbage.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[The Fat Bastard]

I'm a slightly past middle aged man myself at 38

Middle aged is generally defined as 45 to 64. You have another seven years to go before the barista fresh out of college starts offering you a senior citizen discount.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't just about money. It is about appearance. Part of what I've seen in DevOps is making sure people keep up the appearances, where for males, one has the skinny jeans, flannel shirt, Prius in the parking garage, and other "edgy" style. Some older person who can move mountains isn't wanted because he just doesn't look the part. Better to have a developer team that looks good come teleconferences dealing with their crappy code than vice versa.

Then, there is loyalty. You can't bullshit someone in their late 30s or older. When you promise them stock or tell them that they should go buy an expensive car now, they will question you. The 20-somethings don't have that experience, and will just take what people say, then wonder why they got dumped on their ass when it comes time to replace with an offshore dev house or a cadre of H-1Bs. The 20-somethings will work 100+ hour work weeks in a permanent sprint, as they don't know better, while the older people smell what is coming and move to greener pastures.

Then there is wisdom. It is far easier to lie to a 20 something as a manager, where a 40-something will not tolerate such tomfoolery.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't keep up with what middle aged is, our life expectancy seems to jump up every time I approach it.

I get the feeling I'll be 200 and being called a whipper snapper by 230 year olds.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they are basically like an average young woman, valuing the look of a thing rather than the reality of it? We are doomed. I just envisioned paris hilton designing the next windows UI with her fashionable little dog on her lap.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[TheDarkMaster]

they do not want experience, they want people new enough to agree to work for peanuts. Experience is expensive and the (very) expensive CEOs childishly still believe they can get away with dirt cheap (young and unskilled developers). And if all goes wrong they (the CEOs) already have a golden parachute on their contract.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[swb]

My theory is that organic economic growth in the capitalist West has somehow stalled, and corporations looking for increasing profits are increasingly relying on cost cutting to boost profits.

Eliminating older workers in favor of cheaper and more disposable young people and immigrants is a way to obtain cost reductions.

It also helps to gut the middle class so that you produce an ever larger population of more economically disenfranchised young people who are willing to take low-paying jobs.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[richrz]

"Middle aged is generally defined as 45 to 64" That's what all old people say.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also helps to gut the middle class so that you produce an ever larger population of more economically disenfranchised young people who are willing to take low-paying jobs.

Henry Ford: "But who is going to buy my products then?"

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think 38 is "past middle aged"!

Also, the "year of the linux desktop" has been a vaporware thing for at least a decade now. Most people don't want anything to do with linux. Sorry. I'm a tech nerd, but I have little desire to deal with linux and anyone whose not a hard core IT type person has even less desire than I.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Capital has become too concentrated, which means less diversity in how it is invested, and less tolerance for filling niche markets (if you're looking to invest hundreds of millions, a business needing an investment of a couple hundred thousand isn't even on your radar). And with stagnating wages, it becomes much harder for people who don't have capital to begin with to save enough to hang their own shingle.

Without those smaller businesses starting up, there's a lot less economic biodiversity, which results in further concentration of capital, and the loop begins anew.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[TheDarkMaster]

The current generation of business owners have never had and will never have the Ford wisdom.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

My theory is that organic economic growth in the capitalist West has somehow stalled, and corporations looking for increasing profits are increasingly relying on cost cutting to boost profits.

Somewhat true, but not because innovation and "organic" growth are somehow impossible, but because firms are mortgaging their long-term success for better quarterly results. It's like refinancing your house to show a huge income gain this year. That's all good and well this year, but that's going to cost you over time by reducing your future income. Nobody cares because look at this quarter's earnings. The problem is that this all comes crashing down periodically, and then those people get bailed out instead of going out of business.

PS - Sometimes the captcha is apropos.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just defined "Globalism"

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[swb]

I think there's also a kind of capital trap, where successful companies have so much capital on hand but don't see any way to invest it that guarantees rates of return better than short term investments.

But at the same time, they're successful enough that there's not enough shareholder demand that they invest in new markets so they don't invest it, and the capital remains tied up in Treasuries rather than flowing through the economy as physical plants, wages and raw material purchases.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[jbengt]

Middle aged is generally defined [merriam-webster.com] as 45 to 64.

That would make a 44 year-old a young adult, which I won't go along with, even if they would be young compared to me.
Childhood is 0 to 18, young adult about 18 to 36, middle age 36 to 54, mature adult 54 to 72, old person 72 to 90, and borrowed time 90 and up.
Ok, I know that's more arbitrary than accurate, but still better than saying a 64 year old is middle aged - I'm 62, in relatively good health, and I'm definitely not feeling middle aged anymore.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Nidi62]

My theory is that organic economic growth in the capitalist West has somehow stalled, and corporations looking for increasing profits are increasingly relying on cost cutting to boost profits.

Organic growth has stalled so now corporations, driven by the stock market, are focusing on cancerous growth. A company could be regularly turning a net profit of tens or millions of dollars annually, but if it misses an arbitrary growth rate by a percentage point or 2 the stock drops. Just like a cancer, incessant growth will eventually kill the host organism, whether a person or a company.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of what I've seen in DevOps is making sure people keep up the appearances, where for males, one has the skinny jeans, flannel shirt

Awww, found the butthurt fatty who constantly gets passed over for promotion despite how "awesome" he thinks he is. Nevermind the fact that you've been resting on your laurels for the past 15 years and never bothered to learn ANYTHING new and watched the IT field pass you by. Now you blame younger men who are still in decent shape for eating your dinner. Guess what fatass, keep up or get left behind.

The problem isn't the younger people coming in, the problem is you. The competent amongst us who are in our 40s or older have no problems with you know, TEACHING people the ropes of the profession. It goes a lot further than just being full of piss and vitrol.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just defined Globalism

Re: Why do they not want the experience?

[sfcat]

*looks at Microsoft*

Their stock is way up, and that is all they care about. Nothing else matters to them. Hope you saved some money.

That's only because GCP is failing as a platform so MS somehow fell into the #2 spot in the cloud (which is like being #2 in search).

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, sometime in their seventies an adult metamorphs into a person.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Great point.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the Chambers Dictionary defintion:

"between youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner"

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because, although the 40 year old will be your peak producer, they won't go along with whatever clueless stuff the boss wants.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[slew]

I can't keep up with what middle aged is, our life expectancy seems to jump up every time I approach it.

Because that's how life expectancy works.

I get the feeling I'll be 200 and being called a whipper snapper by 230 year olds.

The older you get the longer your life expectancy... Only the oldest person in the world can outlive his or her own life expectancy. For the rest of us, there is always someone older.

This is related to the common misconception that prehistoric men died around 35. That's really because the life expectancy at birth is skewed by high infant mortality rates. Skeletal remains show a significant fraction lived past 65, and comparison with modern day hunter gatherers in a study by Gurven and Kaplan show that modal adult life span (not life expectancy) likely in the range 68–78 years if you reached the age of 15 for prehistoric hunter-gathers which isn't too different than say the Victorian age which many regard as the beginning of the modern era...

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

The management skillset of creating and building a thriving company, taking responsability for your employee's, and making consistent and intelligent investments in people and equipment is long gone and is no longer taught in schools.

What are the consequences of completely failing on a massive government contract to you and your career? You made your company tons of money, never delivered on the product, got paid, got your bonus, employed thousands of people in what is effectively a make-work program. There are no consequences. So you profit-maximize by bringing over lots of immigrants and young kids, and paying the media to post up stories to stroke insecurity. Suffice to say, you'll still be employed because you paid off the politicians to ensure when the contract is signed, there's no skin in the game.

What it has been replaced with teaching managers who believe in crowlism, atheism and who have been taught that grifting is OK, and we're at this point 3 generations divided from managers who knew how to build anything reasonable.

That is why, and they are absolutely terrified of an economy that isn't backed by free money, golden parachutes, bailouts, corporate immunity from the law, uniquitous spying, forever-copyright, and other such nonsense. You begin enforcing the law fairly and properly, incomes for the average joe shoot through the roof.

Now you begin taking away the lavish corporate gifts, cap personal income at somewhere that's reasonable, begin adding responsability back into the equation, add in jailtime for doing illegal things. All of a sudden, the skillset of building companies becomes relevant again and all the dinosaurs and grifters are out of business.

Re: Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you're a tool.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Wrath0fb0b]

You will be either happy or disappointed to know that your theory has a name and has been discussed for decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Why do they not want the experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's your best argument? You are a smelly pig fucker.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[swb]

Happy to know that it's not just some crazy-ass dumb idea that has no basis in reality. I know that Tyler Cowen also has his own spin on the concept of stagnation.

Slightly disappointed to note that it's an old idea, somewhat discredited. But I think economic stagnation is kind of an existential risk of any economy, and the failure of any given prediction of stagnation doesn't necessarily mean that any given economic situation can't be described by some kind of structural stagnation.

I also think its likely that as the global economy matures, stagnation generally seems more likely and amplified by structural problems like wealth inequality, capital hoarding, income inequality, resource contention and so on.

It may also be that growth stagnation isn't really a problem, and that income inequality and great wealth inequality are the actual problems. Growth is seen as a way of producing sufficient surpluses that mediate inequality (through demand for labor increasing wages, mostly), but really we can't rely on growth for mediating inequality.

In fact, there may even be an argument that income and wealth inequality and capital hoarding by firms are actually symptoms of economic stagnation -- they're signs that there is diminished faith in growth producing surpluses, resulting in a desire to "corner the market" prior to even worse future scarcity.

Re:Why do they not want the experience?

[Billly Gates]

It's more than that. Mellinials have this belief that only they can have fresh ideas and energy that old folks lack. This is most pervasive in young HR and managerial groups.

When I was 26 I wanted to change the world and thought old people were stupid and only were there due to seniority.

That's it

[ausekilis]

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.

Re:That's it

[terrycarlino]

Except being old is a legally protected class, just like being Black or female. Filter against Californians or beekeepers or people who drive red cars all you want. If you filter based on a protected class you have legal liability.

Re:That's it

[NicknameUnavailable]

A corporation is an abstract entity which does not exist save for government sanction, it derives all rights it has from what the government itself is allowed to convey. Moreover, the economy is a system meant to facilitate the efficient allocation of finite resources, it doesn't exist for anyone to leverage inefficiencies to the tune of the GDP of small nations, or even small towns - it exists to distribute resources. Fuckerberg is absolutely irrelevant, his wants and needs and desires are irrelevant, he's just a man, like any other.

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

His company, operating in OUR country. He can take his ball and go home if he doesn't like it, we do not care.

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't people get it through their thick skulls that Facebook is a corporation? It does not have to cater to everyone equally.

Until it becomes a dominant player in its market segment and starts to have an impact on the society.

Re:That's it

[Drethon]

Except being old is a legally protected class, just like being Black or female. Filter against Californians or beekeepers or people who drive red cars all you want. If you filter based on a protected class you have legal liability.

Legally protected for jobs, but legally protected for targeted ads?

Re:That's it

[Wrath0fb0b]

You know there are magazines that cater exclusively to members of protected classes. To riff on your examples, Ebony and Jet are magazines targeted towards African Americans. Cosmopolitan targets females.

Advertisers that specifically buy space in those magazines are surely "filtering based on a protected class". I would hope that they are consciously aware as well, rather than buying ads in Jet thinking they are targeting all demographics equally.

Re:That's it

[ausekilis]

We can bicker about this a bit more. Facebook is a "social media" platform, not a job searching/application service. Companies like Monster or Indeed would certainly be hit with some government clubs if they biased hiring/promotion based on any protected classes. If people are truly looking for work, then Facebook isn't the only place to look and no site should be solely relied upon to find your next job. The crux of this is *who* sees *what* ads.

Would anybody really care if Facebook decided to only show cartoony ads catered to young children? What about only geriatric care ads?

More to the point, would older people really want to see "Chik-fil-a, Now Hiring!"? Are older folks - who typically have already started a specific career path - really that offended that they aren't seeing Wal-Mart job ads?

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Facebook is a different animal here...

If I advertise in Ebony, yes more you'll get more African readers to see your ad - there isn't any issue here because white people can still buy ebony if they want to. With facebook on the other hand - you're saying "Only show this ad to people 18 to 35" - Unless I lie about my age on facebook I'll never see the ad. Now if I target on facebook based on things people 18-35 *like* (say people that like pewdipie videos for example) - its possible for people older than 35 to like pewdipie, even though its less likely compared to younger people.

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

So bakeries don't have to make cakes for gay weddings?

Re:That's it

[stealth_finger]

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.

So bakeries don't have to make cakes for gay weddings?

More like they don't have to tell a subsection of gays how to make a cake.

Re:That's it

[squiggleslash]

How about we use that little talked about third way between outright nationalization and privatization, and just - lightly, mostly, but occasionally heavily where it's necessary - regulate private companies?

I know that's an entirely new concept and has never been tried before but...

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook isn't a defendant in this suit.
They're suing the companies that hired Facebook to target their job ads at the young.
Facebook probably didn't break the law, but their clients may have.

Re:That's it

[AmiMoJo]

It all depends on the intent of selecting those magazines for advertising. If the goal is to market stuff to those demographics then that's not going to disadvantage anyone else. If the goal is to make sure white people don't see certain job adverts because for some reason they only want people of colour, that's probably illegal.

In other words it's not the targeting per-se that is the issue, it's if the targeting disadvantages anyone.

Re:That's it

[Headw1nd]

Time to make Facebook/Social Networks government-owned and privately operated.

So you aren't content with the problems we have now, and are interested in adding even more?

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, it's legal to discriminate against Californians!? Wait until my friends in Colorado and the Pacific NW hear this!

Re:That's it

[Wrath0fb0b]

If I advertise in Ebony, yes more you'll get more African readers to see your ad - there isn't any issue here because white people can still buy ebony if they want to.

So long as white people can also visit mycompany.com/careers and see the same advertisements, is there an issue?

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

You can market to protected classes all you like, you cannot discriminate based on any protected class when hiring. Your magazine examples can target marketing when it comes to selling stuff but they cannot discriminate when marketing jobs because jobs are not products.

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertisers that specifically buy space in those magazines are surely "filtering based on a protected class".

Nope. That advertiser is not specifically targeting a protected class for financial harm. That's illegal. Targeting a protected class for a financial benefit is not illegal as long as you're not targeting one group to the exclusion of others. Taking out an employment ad in Ebony magazine is not illegal unless it was their practice to ONLY advertise in Ebony magazine.

Re: That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that it was filtering for no people of color. Or, at Google, to filter for no white guys.

Your argument is like saying we'll post up a job on the bulletin board at the public court house nearby, yet we'll target under 30s online as well.

Clearly discrimination.

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

RACIST!!!

Re:That's it

[Anonymous Coward]

( /s for the /s impaired )

Re: That's it

[Drethon]

Imagine that it was filtering for no people of color. Or, at Google, to filter for no white guys.

Your argument is like saying we'll post up a job on the bulletin board at the public court house nearby, yet we'll target under 30s online as well.

Clearly discrimination.

I wasn't saying discrimination in any form is OK, I'm saying there are laws against discrimination in employment, are there any laws that protect against advertising discrimination?

Over 50 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Over 50 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but I'm frequently solicited for VP and SVP positions. Better luck next time!

Re:Over 50 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, your anecdote really kicked the shit out of his anecdote.

Re:Over 50 ??

[aaarrrgggh]

Well, still no safety net, but the independent contractor/self-employed route can be equally lucrative.

Re:Over 50 ??

[stealth_finger]

a 54 year old fully experienced fully educated to university level programmer, engineer, lead.

They don't put young people in charge and they don't give old people the grunt work.

No surprise

[QuietLagoon]

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.

Re:No surprise

[CastrTroy]

What's amazing to me is that they are even using Facebook in the first place to target younger workers. Most young people don't even use Facebook that much anymore. Facebook in general seems like a terrible place to try to find job applicants, especially in the tech field.

Re:No surprise

[QuietLagoon]

...Most young people don't even use Facebook that much anymore.

That is far too general to have any meaning. There is a trend downwards in young people (under 25) people using Facebook, but many (most?) still do use Facebook. For the 25+ crowd (one could say, the workers being sought) the usage is still quite high, high enough to make job recruiting worthwhile. (btw, Facebook also includes Instagram)

Re:No surprise

[Bryansix]

Do you have any proof of this or is it all conjecture? Let's take some example postings for actual jobs I read in the last week.

Desired qualifications:
At least seven years performing predictive analytics in a specific vertical Masters or PhD in Machine Learning, Engineering or Statistics Knowledge of this set of vertical specific applications

How in the world would anybody who is younger than 30 even apply for this job?

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

to answer your question: by lying

but what you are doing is just finding a distraction: just because you can find a job description that appears to require someone over age 30 doesn't have squat to do with the general trend to not hire older workers. Hint: if you are over 50 it is a *lot* harder to get a job than for someone who is 30.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Do you LIKE the taste? Obviously yes - just like folks like my hosts engine, anything I put out, even piss, is GOOD (unlike "your kind").

Above all else though? Hey - MOMMY LOVES YOU!

APK

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LinkedIN

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Right to be shown job ads?

[Wrath0fb0b]

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.

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.

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

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.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[DRJlaw]

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 [documentcloud.org], 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".

As a stupid question...

When you buy an ad in Teen Vogue, Reddit, AARP, Ebony, or Cosmo, you are buying an ad that is served to every reader of those magazines. The advertiser, the publisher, and the reader take the magazines demographics as it is.

When you buy an ad on Facebook, you down-select from Facebook's demographics based upon categories that are both ordinary and potentially problematic.

And that ca be a no-no. Because failing to serve an ad based on a discriminatory down-selection can be a violation of civil rights laws.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[aaarrrgggh]

While large corporations are in a different class, small employers are unlikely to target more than one paid platform... and are less likely to keep job postings on the website 100% current (rather than strategic hire positions that are "always open"). Does this put them at risk in your opinion?

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Wrath0fb0b]

When you buy an ad in Teen Vogue, Reddit, AARP, Ebony, or Cosmo, you are buying an ad that is served to every reader of those magazines. The advertiser, the publisher, and the reader take the magazines demographics as it is.

Well no, you don't just take it "as-is", you have a choice of Teen Vogue or Ebony or Elle or .... Which is to say you can chose the magazine whose demographic most closely matches.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[ausekilis]

Based on this example, if I am looking to hire and using Facebook, then it falls on me to select the appropriate demographics. It isn't Facebooks fault I picked 18-35, so the blame would fall squarely on me.

Sounds like the blame goes to those listing the jobs, though Facebook might have some work to do regarding clarifying what categories on their platform really mean.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Enabling can be a problem in some cases. See copyright infringement and torrent trackers. Torrent trackers aren't actually violating copyright, but they are constantly being sued as if they are.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Bryansix]

That reminds me to renew my subscription to Teen Vogue.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that's not illegal.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's facebook's fault if they did that down-select for their own job listings also, which is what they're being accused of.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be that machines in factories had no safety features. Worker loses a foot in a sausage mashine? His fault for putting his foot there. Cars did not have seat belts. Killed when thrown out? The guy who hit you is at fault.

It turns out that responsibility is not limited to those who trigger the proximate cause of an injustice. Those who knowingly or negligently enable such injustice also bear some responsibility.

Such as Facebook in this case, allegedly.

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a magazine publisher offers several magazines aimed at different demographics some of which might be protected classes (age, race, sex, etc.) are you discriminating if you don't buy ads in all of them?

How is this any different from demographically-targeted ads on Facebook?

Re:Right to be shown job ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not required to buy ads in the NY Times or the Washington Post or other newspapers of record that are considered to have universal readership, you're allowed to buy the ad in print media anywhere since the result is publicly accessible. Some 22yo male can find your advertisement in his mother's Redbook while sitting on the toilet and respond to it. Digital advertising has the opposite result where only viewers you selected can see the content and an out-of-demographic individual has zero chance of finding 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.

Amazon is blantent about it

[Dax123]

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.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

And so you have your EEO complaint leading to expensive settlement for the company...

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[stealth_finger]

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.

So you got to the interview stage without them bothering to check your DoB? Right.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

The lead said, "I wish you hadn't said that, now I can't hire you, too old". And it ended.

If you got that shit on tape, you'd easily have won a lawsuit against them for age discrimination. I'd guess in the neighborhood of several hundred grand. If this is a serious post and this actually happened, I'm going to predict Amazon is going to get nailed to the wall on this quite soon.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

So you got to the interview stage without them bothering to check your DoB? Right.

If you, or your company does this for job applicants, it's prima facie evidence of age discimination, which is illegal in the US.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

So you got to the interview stage without them bothering to check your DoB? Right. If you, or your company does this for job applicants, it's prima facie evidence of age discimination, which is illegal in the US.

"I wish you hadn't said that, now I can't hire you, too old"

And when you hear shit like this during an interview, it's prima facie evidence that you probably don't want to work for such an ignorant organization. They're only a couple lawsuits away from bankruptcy.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[angel'o'sphere]

Come to Europe.
You would be considered a high skilled expert here.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I short AMZN now?

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[antdude]

Why would that matter? And if you didn't tell him, then they would still find out.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It is against labor law in many places to ask for age, marital status, race, religion, etc. prior to hiring.

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[Billly Gates]

No fresh ideas. The old hate change and the young have drive to change the world said every 25 year old HR manager ever?

Re:Amazon is blantent about it

[antdude]

Um, I never saw applications ask for birthdates before interviews.

who the hell looks for jobs on fucking facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

that is some next level stupidity

Granted...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is not new: other targeted job ads

[davidwr]

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)?

Re:This is not new: other targeted job ads

[jszpilewski]

But since when is Facebook showing job ads? I have heard about some plans to show job offers for blue collar workers but only in some future. Never seen a job add myself there. I must be an old fart then..

Nevertheless looks that some companies wanted to reach Facebook users and reused Facebook's advertisement system intended for selling goods where you have to fill forms specifying target demographics. Most likely being too broad will cost you more.

Facebook once again proved to be slow in making conclusions of how it is being used. With current anti-Facebook hysteria it puts them all in hot water now. ..

Better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't filter on age.

Filter on union membership.

Re:Better idea

[stealth_finger]

Don't filter on age.

Filter on union membership.

Filter on intelligence and dickishness.

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:So what?

[stealth_finger]

but there is no more place in the modern workforce for the over-30. Let's not delude them into thinking otherwise.

So retirement at 30? Fucking shit hot. All these under 30 must be making so much to provide for everyone over 30 who is no longer able to work. Or should everyone have made enough by 30 to fund an additional 60 years of life? Tricky, but doable if you get everything handed down to you by generations that weren't full of shit though and you don't care about the next generation.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about I come down and beat the shit out you so I can go to jail to be able to see an doctor?? it's better then street.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Speaking of no place, Wisdom and Experience are tired of listening to the ramblings of a fucking child who assumes a 30-year old brain is no longer a viable asset, so kindly STFU already and let the adults do the hiring.

Can't believe you have to have your stupidity spelled out for you, as if you and every one of your coworkers have a retirement plan kicking in by age 29. It's not very often you see someone fucking themselves over. That's Darwin Award stupidity right there.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you've never seen Logan's run....

Re:So what?

[Bryansix]

Well, this is what you get when you take a complex situation and try to simplify it too much. Younger workers are useful in some jobs. In others, their lack of experience plays against them. Do you really want a bunch of recent college grads designing complex electrical distribution circuits straight out of college? They wouldn't even understand the systems where they were supposed to get the inputs into the processes through which the design process would start. That experience isn't useless. Sure, they could figure it out but it would take them a lot longer.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

Re:So what?

[Matheus]

You just had to take the Troll bait didn't you...

The OP is from an wannabe engineer who I won't be hiring when they come looking for a job because they think they know more than they do :)

Re:So what?

[radarskiy]

In the book we got Carousel at 21.

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

[Nidi62]

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

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

"mens rea" is such an old idea that it's literally in latin

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: Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Which makes it a thought-crime.

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."

Re: Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

What a terrible, stupid argument... How the fuck are you so god damn idiotic?

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Nidi62]

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.

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Re:Thought-crimes

[Green Mountain Bot]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Bryansix]

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).

Re: Thought-crimes

[Green Mountain Bot]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Bryansix]

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.

Re: Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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'.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[mi]

That's not a thought crime though

The contents of my thoughts determines, whether the very same action is a crime. Ergo, thought-crime.

Re:Thought-crimes

[mi]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Thought-crimes

[slew]

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"?

Re:Thought-crimes

[Green Mountain Bot]

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).

Re: Thought-crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

for H1B no you can't make it an non public job pos

[Joe_Dragon]

for H1B no you can't make it an non public job posting

An even bigger and more insidious problem

[jenningsthecat]

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.

Re:An even bigger and more insidious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And it is outside the purview of the courts since "non-social media user" is not a protected class. I agree that it wrong/stupid to recruit exclusively off social media, but that's not germane to this discussion about an actual lawsuit driven by current law.

Maybe contact your local City/province/State/regional lawmakers? The are usually desparate enough for attention to Sponsor something like this.

young kids don't have the experience to say no to

[Joe_Dragon]

young kids don't have the experience to say no or that will not work.

Re:for H1B no you can't make it an non public job

[Anonymous Coward]

for H1B no you can't make it an non public job posting

The locked filing cabinet in the basement is "public"....

Social Media Users Deserve This Fate

[Anonymous Coward]

Unemployment is only one price you will pay for participating in social media services. Just ask Rosanne.

The same fools that exercise freedom of speech to intimidate the public with their display of guns and wave confederate flags are also surprised that nobody wants to hire them. It turns out that we also have freedom of association, and if I find your speech to be hateful then I will not associate with you.

If you are willing to abdicate your U.S. 4th Amendment rights to corporations by posting all of your personal information, you deserve to be discriminated against. That includes this forum. If you are not posting as Anonymous Coward, your words will be used against you at some point in time.

What is the remedy?

[ahoffer0]

Interesting conundrum. What are the possible solutions?

Re:What is the remedy?

[PPH]

I don't have a Facebook account. But were I to begin job shopping, what's to stop me from creating one with a fake age? The worst Zuckerberg could do to be is to suspend my account.

I already 'fake' my age by a few days or months when signing up for various sites who don't have a legal right to know it. It slows people down from scraping the web and setting up fake IDs in my name if they can't get my birthday right. And I get Happy Birthday messages from various sources all throughout the year.

Re:What is the remedy?

[Joe_Dragon]

record the interview and when you have them on tape saying your not X age or did you lie about your age?

Re:What is the remedy?

[Anonymous Coward]

In California? This would be more illegal than what they are doing.

Re:Amazon is blantent(sic) about it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Forget Facehole

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a necessary requirement. There are so many other avenues of employment anyone could lose count.

Yes. We are out of ideas.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:for H1B no you can't make it an non public job

[Alypius]

Just beware of the leopard.

Re:for H1B no you can't make it an non public job

[desdinova 216]

behind the sign saying "beware of leopard"

Pointless theoretical argument

[mileshigh]

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.

Young, dumb, and naive

[Rick Schumann]

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.

Re:Young, dumb, and naive

[Bryansix]

This is how Circuit City went out of business. They laid off all their higher paid sales people. Those people also happened to account for most of the sales.

Re:Young, dumb, and naive

[Rick Schumann]

True story: Way back in a previous life, I used to repair coin-op arcade games. I worked for the same guy for years. He was a non-electronics person. In reference to some game PCB that was broken, that I was expressing my doubts as to whether it could be repaired or not, he actually said to me "Can't you just change some chips or something?" like it was all just snap your fingers and it's All Better Now. You can imagine the look I gave him. This is how business people (who are not technical people) think: we make it look easy, they have no idea what it takes to get a job done, so they think it's Not That Hard and we're just sandbagging them. Then some of them get the bright idea that just because someone has a shiny new Bachelors' Degree hanging on their wall, that they Know Everything.

Re:Young, dumb, and naive

[Anonymous Coward]

I call B.S. on this.

I gave up on the tech industry two years ago, but before I did I tried lowering my salary requirements to only slightly above entry-level. It didn't help.

Tech companies won't hire older workers regardless of salary. It's assumed that if you're in your 40s and not a superhero rockstar that can afford to retire based on the four start-ups you co-founded, there must be something wrong with you.

Simple Solution

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

Typo in title

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have meant "block younger people". All old people are on Facebook.

Precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

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/

Does Not Compute

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

They've been getting away with dirt cheap

[rsilvergun]

for at least 15 years, maybe longer. As far as I can tell they seem to be winning.

College job fairs block older job seekers

[viperidaenz]

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...

It's not that easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.