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Facebook, Amazon, and Hundreds of Companies Post Targeted Job Ads That Screen Out Older Workers (vox.com)
Older workers are accusing Facebook, Ikea, and hundreds of other companies for discriminating against job seekers in their 50s and 60s through targeted job ads posted on Facebook. From a report: The Communications Workers of America, a labor union representing 700,000 media workers across the country, added the companies to a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday, which was filed in California federal court in December. In its original complaint, the labor union accused Amazon, T-Mobile, and Cox Media Group of doing the same thing. The case, Bradley v. T-Mobile, has major implications for US employers, who routinely buy job ads on Facebook to reach users. The plaintiffs argue that Amazon, T-Mobile, Ikea, Facebook, and hundreds of other companies target the ads so they are only seen by younger Facebook users.
The lawsuit revolves around Facebook's unique business model, which lets advertisers micro-target the network's users based on their interests, city, age, and other demographic information. In the past, equal rights advocates have sued Facebook for accepting ads that discriminate against consumers based on their religion, race, and gender. Facebook has argued that the company is not legally responsible when other companies buy ads that violate the law.
The lawsuit revolves around Facebook's unique business model, which lets advertisers micro-target the network's users based on their interests, city, age, and other demographic information. In the past, equal rights advocates have sued Facebook for accepting ads that discriminate against consumers based on their religion, race, and gender. Facebook has argued that the company is not legally responsible when other companies buy ads that violate the law.
The first question that comes to my mind is, why would ANYONE be honest when entering their information into Facebook?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Preferably kids who are just out of college and set away 100+ unsuccessful applications. Ones happy to spend from morning till night doing drudge work for little pay.
places are not honest about how many hours per week they want you to work.
Japan is really bad but they still have the room where older people are paid to sit on ass all till retirement age
so sexual deviants can run recruitment ads for underage teens? ISIL can too? child porn ads?
Christine Peterson and Bruce Perens are SJW commie liars. They came peddling their lies here and we turned them away. We rebuked them.
Get thee behind me, OSI!
There is an enabler.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
After I went back to school to get another degree ten years ago, I dropped my first degree from my resume. Most recruiters look for three years in each of the last three positions, so I list my experience from the last ten years. Since I get hired over the phone, most hiring managers are shocked to see that my beard is snow white. Never mind that the color of my beard is irrelevant to the job.
They can still get close enough.
Got kids? Married? Lots of friends who are members of things like "Class of Ridgemont High 1987."
Why would you look for a job through a targeted advertisement on Facebook? Aren't half of them just scams anyway? And what older person seeking employment doesn't have at least some semblance of a network through which they could reasonably find something else?
From two days ago
captcha: auditors
Older workers need better job protection -- Too easy / tempting to let them go, chances of getting hired at a similar pay rate as the lost job are slim, and contrary to what people think, the days of fat retirements are long gone. Older workers are at great risk. Greater than other classes, I would say.
But of course, the public at large don't see it like that, the politicians can't be bothered to care, and companies only care about moneymoneymoney.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Funny, as an older traditional Christian who has also written code professionally for about 25 years, I don't get any ads for jobs on Facebook.
I wonder why that is?
(I mean, it's not like I need a new gig - doing fine where I'm at. But still...)
That is their freedom.
Commies, socialists and other fascists willing to spend other people's money go REEEEEEE.
You had this story just a day or two ago!
Here, and I thought I saw it passing by much more recently on /. as well.
That makes 2 stale stories in a row. *Pours bucket of water on msmash.* Wake up man, you're in the driver's seat!
The world will be better off when all the baby boomers finally die off.
I have nothing against targeted ads, but advertiser should be forced to reveal their target to the receiver of the ad. I think this would stop most of the abuse and would easy way to regulate this.
Jan
When I decided to "correct" my age on Facebook, the big question was: should I make myself 15 years older, or 15 years younger?
Apparently, I chose poorly.
The moral here is that whenever you're entering your age into some website, you should always pick either 13 or 21. There are no other ages that any reasonable person would start a profile with.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
anymore than any slave owner really cares about their slaves, after all, indebted servitude is wage slavery, and everybody knows we've been sold down the river
the terrible possibility that I might not see certain ads on Facebook. That's a risk I'm willing to take.
your purposeful and studious avoidance of consideration of any needs besides your own is the first clue that you're a narcissist bordering on psychopath
the CWA is bringing this suit.
businesses are just that, businesses. People tend to be pretty rational when it comes to making money; albeit not always very nice about it. For example, you see some reverse age discrimination at Walmart where they prefer older workers because though they're slower they always show up for shifts.
What I'm saying is this: by and large older workers are less productive. They take time off for their kids, their health, etc. They're not willing to work 60/hr a week with 20 of that unpaid in exchange for vague promises of promotion. There are a ton of other reasons too. So unless you've got a special case like Walmart where workers are so unreliable that it's worth taking the productivity hit for consistency or need highly specialized skills then older workers just don't make economic sense
This is an economic reality we all should face. The sooner we do the sooner we can talk about what to do with all these under employed (or unemployed) workers. If you're a young'un reading this now you're either going to join the older set or die. Literally. It takes years to set up a structure to protect people since there's going to be a ton of resistance. Now's the time to start supporting change.
As for that change, we need more retirement support and better wages. Maybe Social Security at an early age. Forcing employers to hire less productive old people is just going to be bad all around. The young guys will be mad when gramps can't keep up and the oldsters will work themselves into an early grave.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
One can get a very lose idea of one's age with big data techniques.
Just from your posts, interests, friends, likes, etc .... you can get it within a year or two.
And then, people like my wife have idiot friends at Church who post (based upon the church registry), "Happy 55th today!!!!"
I got you down to the age.
And coupled with the LinkedIN and the many many many data sources that are out there, the only reason to interview someone is to check for any quirks - like gray hair.
And if anyone thinks that you'd be opened up for an EEOC lawsuit, don't worry.
They have to PROVE that you didn't hire them because of age - because, you'll turn them down because "they didn't have the skills" - your get out of lawsuit card.
"You don't fit in" or "You don't fit into our corporate culture" also works.
If you only post jobs to facebook I don't want to work for you.
If you only look for jobs on facebook I don't want to hire you.
If the young'uns are using other platforms (like other articles tell us so often) the targeting will be ineffective anyway.
Ageism is embedded and institutionalized, completely pervasive in the tech industry. I just turned 50 and thank my lucky stars that I have work. I'm thinking about studying math and programming to accomplish my own creative projects, and maybe someday write an app or two, but I have no illusions about every being hired. It's just not going to happen. It's like frickin' Logan's Run out there.
You are discrimating against older workers and/or poor peoples right off the bat by putting jobs ads online.
Hmmmm
Yes, keep voting Democrat so people who don't have skills worth 15 dollars an hour starve. Genius.
If many employer's were honest in job descriptions. They would post that they want someone young, no family, willing to give up personal life and be married to your work.
Fortunately, there are companies who preferentially hire older workers. A major publisher I worked for recruited semi-retired persons because they had experience with the (shiney, new) mainframe they bought. Who promptly brought up a Linux partition for us young whipper-snappers (;-))
davecb@spamcop.net
Which apparently you're not, as you totally missed their point.
IANAL, but I did a short (one day) contract for a lawyer not long ago, and one of the things I learned on the assignment is that age is a protected class. It's not just "you can't discriminate on age" but that there are fairly strong penalties for doing so.
The issue I think is that it's just been an assumed way for doing business, and the cost of litigation (another thing I learned at that assignment) and the *length* of litigation (minimum 18 months) makes it highly unlikely that any individual or small group of individuals would pursue it.
So like the Hollywood casting couch, discrimination based on age is something "everyone does but nobody talks about". Unlike the casting couch, I don't see age discrimination ever becoming a big deal. I think mostly because the media cares very little about brackets outside tween-18 and 18-24.
I'd wondered throughout my career whether this would change when boomers started to age out, when there was a higher chance of there being enough motivated people to pursue class action lawsuits, but it didn't really, and now we're pretty much at the end of boomers in the workforce. I suspect things are just going to get more grim for old pharts.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
. . . for an intelligent comment here, getting to be quite rare.
Now why would anyone care about this since it has been going on forever???? And American pathetic corporate biz shows how anti-experience has destroyed any real business in America today, which shows up in crapola design of anything and everything (evidently everyone has forgotten The Design of Everyday Things ????).
I recall being forced down to nonexistence in the IT field, regardless if they even were aware of my contributions (used by billions daily) --- and having to deal with endless IT wannabe morons who, after you patiently explained how to clear up the problem, would respond that the solution was not correct, then return six months later, claiming to have figured out the problem --- which was EXACTLY what you had previously explained to them in a most tactful and patient manner, so even the most halfwitted millennial could grasp it!
Why do employers discriminate based upon age? Study after study has shown that older workers perform just as well as younger workers for most tasks. Ageism bias is ignorant.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda...
https://www.techrepublic.com/a...
https://www.recode.net/2016/10...
The only logical reason to discriminate against older workers is because health insurance costs in the US are far higher for older people.
Is age discrimination less of a problem in countries that have single payer heath care?
Greed is the root of all evil.
"equal rights advocates have sued Facebook for accepting ads that discriminate against consumers based on their religion, race, and gender" Bullshit. If equal rights and discrimination were the issue in ads they'd be suing P&G because they discriminate in Tampax ads by not having any men. When the fuck did humanity lose their marbles? Seasame Street doesn't have enough adult content dealing with the issues that adults have to contend with. Ageism I tell ya.
Your reply, and the ones above echoing your sentiments, are proof that protections for older workers are needed. The prejudicial bias is blatant. Guilty until proven innocent!
In my own experience the older it worker will absolutely work as hard or long as younger ones and even more so but will have less reservations about calling people on bullshit.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
... that will put up with 'opportunities' and bullshit. Preferably from university with a degree, that they can hire cheap and rent out for lots of money. We have that type of recruting based shops in abundance here in Germany too. Douchebags that want to hire you for 35 Euros and rent you out for 150 Euros an hour. That's a game anyone in his right mind wouldn't want to play in his mid-40ies anymore anyway.
When your older and have been in the business for long decades, people won't ask you for a quick hire.
Won't happen, plain and simple.
You will, however, if you play your cards right, be able to get into better paying senior jobs. You will need a suit and tie to go with your grey hair and upgrade your habits and mannerisms to senior as well though. Don't expect to be taken for granted coming to work with a worn-out nerd t-shirt, 50kg overweight, flaky unkempt hair protruding from a balding head and wrinkles of a 50+ year old - that's my experience anyway.
Ageism works both ways. Truth be told, senior positions are more rare, but that doesn't stop an experienced software developer from going freelance and doing some consulting and remote working on the side. If you solve the problem, no one cares about your age. And if they do, it's like I said: They want someone stupid and naive to burn up. Stear clear.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
>im too stupid to read Orwell
just go back to faceballs already you slave
Im sure your coworkers LOVED having lunch with you too. KEK.
>I don't have any figures to back this up, but in my experience..
In my experience your experience is a logical failing, thanks for playing oh so typical Amerikuk!
Funny when the same companies all the time tout how much they love diversity etc.
It seems to me that the responsibility of companies like Facebook for illegal ads on their platforms should be the same as the responsibility of ISPs for illegal file sharing on their platforms. It's the same principle. If people use my service in illegal ways, am I responsible or not? And if so, to what extent? We've been over this ground before, extensively. It shouldn't be treated like unexplored territory just because we're talking about different content.
It can show ads without using any of my personal data t all. Like TV, radio and newspapers have always done.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Bingo!
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Let users search for job ads themselves, using whatever keywords they choose, and don't filter by keywords they don't specify.
Then every user has access to every ad. Problem solved.
If you're 21, nobody will be looking to hire you to manage their entire company. If your 51 like me, you shouldn't really be looking for entry-level jobs. There's a place for every age bracket.
I've had to find a new job 3 times in the last 10 years. My age has never been an issue, as far as I could tell. I'm well-paid, doing a job I like, staying technical.
Silicon Valley may be a different story. Maybe it's time to find work elsewhere!