Facebook Caught Up in Age Discrimination Lawsuit
Another day, another scandal involving Facebook…
As if the social media giant didn’t have enough problems on
its hands right now in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and questions
regarding the role the company allegedly played in the manipulation of US election
results, Facebook have now been caught up in yet another lawsuit.
The lawsuit in question, filed in December on behalf of the Communications
Workers of America union, accuses a number of companies of engaging in age
discrimination among jobseekers by means of Facebook’s ad platform, and the
lawsuit has now been expanded to include a slew of new companies including Arhaus,
Capital One, Citadel, Defenders, Fairfield Residential, IKEA, Leidos, Sleep
Number Corp., Triplebyte, Weichert Realtors, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, University
of Maryland Medical System, and Facebook themselves. The aforementioned companies
are yet to be named as formal defendants, the Register
reports.
The accusations stem from the way in which ads can be
filtered on Facebook, only appearing to people of a specified gender, race, or
age range. The complaint claims that this goes against existing laws designed
to promote equal opportunities and prevent discrimination in the job market.
The complaint states:
“A significant portion of large employers and employment
agencies in America routinely use Facebook’s ad platform to exclude older
workers from receiving employment ads, primarily by selecting an age range for
the ad population that excludes older workers; and many companies also use
Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences feature to send employment ads to workers who
are demographically similar to their younger workforces.
“While Facebook makes it possible to limit which Facebook
users will see an ad based on age of the user (including employment ads),
federal, state, and local law prohibit age discrimination in advertising and recruiting
for job opportunities.”
Facebook declined to comment on the matter.
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Facebook Caught Up in Age Discrimination Lawsuit
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Rating:
Unknown
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