5 ms·

It’s interesting to imagine a hypothetical. Suppose a company chose an ad targeting segment with perfect 50/50 historical probability of a viewer being of eithe

by mlthoughts2018 7y ago

It’s interesting to imagine a hypothetical. Suppose a company chose an ad targeting segment with perfect 50/50 historical probability of a viewer being of either traditional male / female gender identity given they are in the segment. Now suppose through some weird fluke, the ads are actually only delivered to people of one single gender classification. Has the company done everything required of them by trying to target an equal mix along this particular characteristic dimension that society attaches a legal criteria to? Or has the company failed to do what is required because they merely tried to target 50/50 but failed to guarantee that it actually happened? Then flip it around. Suppose a company targets an ad segment that is 100% male because they are actively discriminating against women. But through some fluke of ad delivery they actually show the ad to a 50/50 mix. Are they free of committing a crime because nobody ended up being discriminated against? Or have they committed a crime merely by trying to target a certain subset of the population with a disapproved set of characteristics? To me it begs a question of whether the company’s legal obligation occurs at the level of defining who to try to target, at the level of who is actually targeted (even if it is executed by a third party), or both? A further interesting question is that if this applies to one type of resource (jobs) does it also apply to others like plain old goods and services? Suppose a sporting goods company knows that only 100% males have ever bought their merchandise or expresssed willingness to buy in market research. Is the company legally obligated to still show ads to women? If not, what is the underlying criteria that supposedly separates job listings from product listings? Another interesting question is whether accidental correlation with mix of the targeted audience also results in blame. What if you target a set of people with behavioral characteristics A, B and C. None of them has any obvious connection to gender, sexual orientation, etc., but it turns out they are heavily correlated and (honestly) nobody knew ahead of time (maybe even the correlation is seasonal and prior data could not have shown it). Does this make the company responsible?

toss1 7y ago
For your examples of intent vs actual net targeting, it is not unreasonable to expect that an employer check the actual results of their targeting selections and ensure that they produce sound results. "what is the underlying criteria that supposedly separates job listings from product listings?" It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law. If you want to employ someone, you MUST give equal opportunity, and cannot discriminate based on any of the protected classes (and ignorance of the law is no excuse). Re your various characteristics, again, you MUST check your results for parity of results. Your example of "oh, I'm just targeting these particular characteristics and I had no idea that they happened to correlate 100% with young white males, oh my!", would provide such an easy work-aroud the EEO laws as to make them worthless. So, no, you can't do that.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  > “It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law.” Sorry I was not clear about this. I meant what are the sociological / philosophical reasons. Legal reasons get created at the whim of lobbying or party politics and don’t usually have much to do with protecting the welfare of people (even though they can selectively serve that purpose after the fact).
  - yawaramin 7y ago
    > I meant what are the sociological / philosophical reasons. Are you asking why it's bad to discriminate against women, foreigners, and older people in hiring?
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      No, and it’s fairly ludicrous to even suppose it. I’m asking why we choose to emphasize this along some axes of characteristics and not along others. E.g. introvert / extravert axis is something employers are free to discriminate / harass along (e.g. open plan office layouts, less “outgoing” people often paid much less for the same job) even though it likely causes as much damage as any other axis that roughly splits the population. Yet few people seem bothered enough by this to organize legislation or talk about it seriously. I think it’s interesting to ask why some kinds of characteristcs (gender, sexual orientation) are allowed to have this elevated status, and what does it mean about true intentions behind why there are protected classes of characteristics? Because of the existence of unprotected characteristic axes like introvert / extravert that few seem to care much about, the explanation of protected classes, by definition, cannot be mitigation of harm / equitable treatment, etc.
      - yawaramin 7y ago
        > E.g. introvert / extravert axis is something employers are free to discriminate / harass along First of all–'introversion' is, scientifically speaking, not as clear-cut as what most people think it is ( https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/will-the-real-introverts-please-stand-up/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/will-th... ). Medically speaking, it's not considered to be a disability. For conditions that are medically considered as disabilities, the relevant US law already covers accommodations: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/disability.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/disability.cfm > it likely causes as much damage as any other axis that roughly splits the population. I wonder how you are measuring 'damage'? Are you saying that introverts suffer as much damage from loud workplaces as racial minorities do from being denied employment? I'm really struggling to understand the logic here. > I think it’s interesting to ask why some kinds of characteristcs (gender, sexual orientation) are allowed to have this elevated status, You are free to read up on the history of why the protected classes exist in employment law if interested. The relevant laws and judgments behind them are all public knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States > Because of the existence of unprotected characteristic axes ... the explanation of protected classes, by definition, cannot be mitigation of harm Or ... here's another explanation–you may not have fully understood the history of the relevant laws, why the existing protected classes reached that status, and mistakenly believe that other classes were not considered. Fortunately, you have plenty of opportunity to educate yourself if interested.

toss1 7y ago

For your examples of intent vs actual net targeting, it is not unreasonable to expect that an employer check the actual results of their targeting selections and ensure that they produce sound results. "what is the underlying criteria that supposedly separates job listings from product listings?" It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law. If you want to employ someone, you MUST give equal opportunity, and cannot discriminate based on any of the protected classes (and ignorance of the law is no excuse). Re your various characteristics, again, you MUST check your results for parity of results. Your example of "oh, I'm just targeting these particular characteristics and I had no idea that they happened to correlate 100% with young white males, oh my!", would provide such an easy work-aroud the EEO laws as to make them worthless. So, no, you can't do that.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
> “It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law.” Sorry I was not clear about this. I meant what are the sociological / philosophical reasons. Legal reasons get created at the whim of lobbying or party politics and don’t usually have much to do with protecting the welfare of people (even though they can selectively serve that purpose after the fact).
- yawaramin 7y ago
  > I meant what are the sociological / philosophical reasons. Are you asking why it's bad to discriminate against women, foreigners, and older people in hiring?
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    No, and it’s fairly ludicrous to even suppose it. I’m asking why we choose to emphasize this along some axes of characteristics and not along others. E.g. introvert / extravert axis is something employers are free to discriminate / harass along (e.g. open plan office layouts, less “outgoing” people often paid much less for the same job) even though it likely causes as much damage as any other axis that roughly splits the population. Yet few people seem bothered enough by this to organize legislation or talk about it seriously. I think it’s interesting to ask why some kinds of characteristcs (gender, sexual orientation) are allowed to have this elevated status, and what does it mean about true intentions behind why there are protected classes of characteristics? Because of the existence of unprotected characteristic axes like introvert / extravert that few seem to care much about, the explanation of protected classes, by definition, cannot be mitigation of harm / equitable treatment, etc.
    - yawaramin 7y ago
      > E.g. introvert / extravert axis is something employers are free to discriminate / harass along First of all–'introversion' is, scientifically speaking, not as clear-cut as what most people think it is ( https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/will-the-real-introverts-please-stand-up/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/will-th... ). Medically speaking, it's not considered to be a disability. For conditions that are medically considered as disabilities, the relevant US law already covers accommodations: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/disability.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/disability.cfm > it likely causes as much damage as any other axis that roughly splits the population. I wonder how you are measuring 'damage'? Are you saying that introverts suffer as much damage from loud workplaces as racial minorities do from being denied employment? I'm really struggling to understand the logic here. > I think it’s interesting to ask why some kinds of characteristcs (gender, sexual orientation) are allowed to have this elevated status, You are free to read up on the history of why the protected classes exist in employment law if interested. The relevant laws and judgments behind them are all public knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States > Because of the existence of unprotected characteristic axes ... the explanation of protected classes, by definition, cannot be mitigation of harm Or ... here's another explanation–you may not have fully understood the history of the relevant laws, why the existing protected classes reached that status, and mistakenly believe that other classes were not considered. Fortunately, you have plenty of opportunity to educate yourself if interested.