Job adverts on Facebook ‘favour men’ to be pilots

FACEBOOK has been accused of breaching equality laws after its ad-targeting technology was found to favour men with job adverts for male-dominated roles such as mechanics and pilots.

 

The campaign group Global Witness has filed complaints with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Information Commissioner, claiming one of the social media sites' algorithms designed to show jobs to the most interested candidates is discriminatory. 

 

Global Witness alleges the company may have breached laws preventing discrimination against women in the workplace. In one case, 96pc of those who viewed an advert for a mechanic were men, while 95pc of those who saw a nursery nurse posting were women. Facebook has stated that it is preparing to update its job advert system within weeks. 

 

In the Global Witness tests, the advertiser themselves had not specified that job adverts should be directed at a particular gender. Instead, the targeting was the results of a Facebook algorithm that aims to push adverts into the feeds of users likely to be most receptive. Global Witness also said it had been able to post adverts that deliberately discriminated against women and against those aged over 55. 

 

Facebook said it is reviewing the group's findings. The company added that it is considering restrictions that would stop employers from deliberately discriminating in job adverts, which currently only apply in North America. Facebook added: "Our system takes into account different kinds of information to try to serve people ads they will be most interested in, and we are reviewing the findings within this report."

 

Broadgate Legal

London Solicitors

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