The\u00a0American Civil Liberties Union\u00a0(ACLU) is suing\u00a0Facebook\u00a0on behalf of three women job seekers who accused the\u00a0social media\u00a0giant of posting ads that are shown only to men.<\/p>\n
The ACLU, along with the\u00a0Communications Workers of\u00a0America\u00a0and\u00a0the employment law firm\u00a0Outten & Golden LLP, on Tuesday filed charges with the\u00a0US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission\u00a0against\u00a0Facebook.<\/p>\n
“The case is brought on behalf of three job seekers and the Communications Workers of America, on behalf of a proposed class of millions of job applicants. It alleges that these job\u00a0advertising\u00a0practices violate federal civil rights laws prohibiting sex and age\u00a0discrimination\u00a0in employment,”\u00a0Galen Sherwin\u00a0from ACLU Women’s Rights Project wrote in a blog post.<\/p>\n
Facebook requires users to identify their sex in the binary categories of male or female in order to even open an account.<\/p>\n
“While users can later change their sex designation and select from among a few dozen options to describe their gender identity, Facebook still requires users to choose gendered pronouns (male, female, or neutral), which it then offers to advertisers for purposes of gender-based ad targeting.<\/p>\n
“Facebook delivers the ad accordingly, including a notice that the user is seeing the ad because of their sex,” the ACLU said.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit claimed that Facebook let 10 employers, including a police department, to run advertisements excluding women and nonbinary users.<\/p>\n
Facebook responded to the allegations, saying there is no place for\u00a0discrimination\u00a0on Facebook.<\/p>\n
“It’s strictly prohibited in our policies, and over the past year, we’ve strengthened our systems to further protect against misuse,” Download reported, quoting a Facebook\u00a0spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Facebook is “reviewing the complaint and look forward to defending our practices,” the\u00a0spokesperson\u00a0added.<\/p>\n
According to the ACLU, Facebook also offers advertisers the ability to use what it calls “Lookalike Targeting,” which allows advertisers to target customers with traits similar to those of their customer base.<\/p>\n
It’s important to note that\u00a0online platforms\u00a0like Facebook are generally not liable for content published by others.<\/p>\n
“But in this case, Facebook is doing much more than merely publishing content created by others. It has built the architecture for this discriminatory\u00a0marketing\u00a0framework, enabled and encouraged advertisers to use it, and delivered the gender-based ads according to employers’ sex-based preferences,” the ACLU emphasised.<\/p>\n
Facebook must change its platform to prevent advertisers from exploiting user data for discriminatory purposes, and ensure once and for all that all users, regardless of gender, race, age, or other protected status, are given a fair shake, said the ACLU.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
IANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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