Facebook and a group of 10 employers are being sued by workers for alleged gender discrimination after job adverts on the social media site targeted male users and did not appear to women.

The case is being brought by three female workers and the union, the Communications Workers of America, which represents hundreds of thousands of female workers.

They claim that most of the male-targeted ads from employers were in male-dominated fields, such as the police force.

“I’ve heard stories about when people looked for jobs in the classified ads and big bold letters read ‘help wanted – male’ or ‘help wanted – female’. I was shocked to find that this discrimination is still happening, just online instead of in newspapers,” said Linda Bradley, a job-seeker and a complainant in the case.

“I shouldn’t be shut out of the chance to hear about a job opportunity just because I am a woman.”

Facebook has come under fire about its paid advertising platform, and whether it allows and encourages advertisers to discriminate based on race, national origin, age and gender.

It has been alleged that Facebook provides job ads which allow employers to choose who they want based on their age and sex, and that the social media company earns money from placing job ads that exclude women and older workers from receiving them.

Targeting job ads by sex is unlawful under federal, state, and local civil rights laws. In a landmark US supreme court ruling in 1973, the court held that the government can forbid job advertising that discriminates based on sex.

“The internet did not erase our civil rights laws. It violates the law if an employer uses Facebook to deny job ads to women,” said Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney at Outten & Golden, a workers’ rights law firm. “The last time I checked, you don’t have to be a man to be a truck driver or a police officer. But Facebook and employers are acting like it’s the 1950s, before federal employment law banned sex discrimination.”

Online platforms are generally not liable for publishing content created by others, but the charges assert that Facebook can be held legally responsible for acting as a recruiter connecting employers with prospective employees.

A Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “There is no place for discrimination on Facebook; it’s strictly prohibited in our policies, and over the past year, we’ve strengthened our systems to further protect against misuse. We are reviewing the complaint and look forward to defending our practices.”
(Published by The Guardian, September 18, 2018)