7 ms·
Can you explain why you think this?
by paperhatwriter 11mo ago
Can you explain why you think this?
- cm2012 11mo agoThe algorithm is responding to people's revealed preferences in what job ads they want to see
- hydrogen7800 11mo agoAll discrimination can be described as "revealed preference". A very convenient way of ignoring systemic harm.
- fastball 11mo agoThe onus needs to be on convincingly demonstrating the alleged systemic harm. Until then, "revealed preference" seems more appropriate.
- hydrogen7800 11mo agoAre you saying the harm from gender-based employment discrimination needs to be demonstrated, or that harm from facebook's permitting of that discrimination needs to be demonstrated?
- rpdillon 11mo agoYou're begging the question. The challenge is to compel belief that unequal gender distribution across professions creates a systemic harm.
- billy99k 11mo agoIf a company gets 0% response from a certain group, why should they have to pay for ads, when the likelihood they will find a candidate is next to nothing? This also only ever goes in one direction. A friend of mine works for a company run by and employs 100% women. In any other context, it would be illegal. Instead, it's considered 'diverse' and 'empowering'. Based on statistics alone, it's obvious the company is hiring women based on choice. Tech companies, like Duo, touted the fact that they had all women development teams a few years back. When discrimination like this is an accepted practice, I stop listening.
- handoflixue 11mo agoMaybe Tech companies like Duo are just running gendered job ads, and that's why men aren't applying - they never see the ads. By your logic, that would be totally acceptable, right?
- inglor_cz 11mo agoYou can always claim harm, but proving it is a different story. Policies like that are based on results of psychological research such as "stereotype threat", which has recently fallen victim to the reproducibility crisis. In other words, the entire social engineering structure of such laws may be a house built on sand.
- handoflixue 11mo agoHaving fewer opportunities is obviously a harm. If it's NOT harm, then it should be legal for job boards to only show positions to the desired gender, right?
- inglor_cz 11mo ago"Having fewer opportunities is obviously a harm." Scope matters. On the level of the entire economy? Possibly yes, but you haven't shown that the entire economy will discriminate against X or Y; respective preferences of individual players may well balance out. On the level of a single Acme, Inc.? What if that particular organization is unofficially hostile to a particular gender? I would say that in such case, it is more harmful to join it blindly and then suffer from the generally unfriendly environment than to steer clear of them in time. I wouldn't personally like to become an employee in a corporation that prefers not to employ men and is only forced to do so by external powers. And I would prefer them to be honest and advertise that openly, to save my time and theirs from making an unhappy match.
- rpdillon 11mo agoHow does what is advertised to you affect your opportunities? Opportunities are things that are available to you. Obviously people can seek out opportunities. They don't have to have them thrust in front of them.
- Alex2037 11mo agoagain, these are ads. not job postings, job ads. it's not "harmful" to enable advertisers to choose which audiences to target.
- flir 11mo agoThe job was posted was in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.' But it was posted, and apparently that's what matters. So the ads that signpost you to the posting that only [people with special glasses] can see are just peachy.
- thih9 11mo agoIt is harmful and it is also illegal. At least according to “Is It Discriminatory to Advertise Job Opportunities on Facebook?”, https://www.thatcherlaw.com/blog/2022/12/is-it-discriminatory-to-advertise-job-opportunities-on-facebook/ https://www.thatcherlaw.com/blog/2022/12/is-it-discriminator...
- rpdillon 11mo agoYou would need to connect men not being as prevalent in child care profession roles to some sort of systemic harm. Or women not being as prevalent in construction worker roles. Just because there's a discrepancy between the two genders doesn't mean there's systemic harm stemming from it.
- em-bee 11mo agothe harm in child care and education should be obvious: children need role models of both genders. in no other profession is it as important for gender parity to be enforced. so at least in that area there is most certainly a systemic harm if one gender dominates.
- rpdillon 11mo agoIt's not obvious at all. I would never count on my children getting their role models from their daycare providers.
- em-bee 11mo agoevery adult the children come in contact with is a role model. children don't select their role models. the amount of time that children spend in kindergarten and school makes that inevitable. for good and for bad. you can't not count on children getting their role models from there, but you can't even avoid it. children need role models from both genders. and if there is no gender parity (or something reasonably close) in education, then they are not getting the role models they need.
- rpdillon 11mo agoI've thought a bit about this since you made the comment, and I think your point about education in particular has a lot of merit. I would normally dispute how you phrased your last sentence, but I've noticed this decline in how boys perform in school, and also noticed that the teaching profession is highly gendered. Thanks for the discussion, you've given me a bunch to think about.
- wiseowise 11mo agoHow far are you willing to stretch this? What about skin color? Nationality? Religion?
- mustyoshi 11mo agoNot the guy you're responding to but I'm not going to willingly pay money for pork rind ads to be shown to Muslims. In fact I'd go so far as to suggest that should be illegal as a hate crime.
- JuniperMesos 11mo agoUnder that legal regime I could imagine Meta being simultaneously sued by one group of people for not discriminating enough on one demographic category, and by another group of people for discriminating too much along a different category. And this ultimately why I would like to see these kinds of laws repealed completely.
- em-bee 11mo agoonly if the ads are targeted specifically at muslims. otherwise such ads would be offensive even if posted on streets in cities where muslims live.
- nkmnz 11mo agoSo if I advertise my golfing equipment only in golf clubs, and golf clubs happen to be predominantly visited by old white men, am I discriminating against the young, against women, and against people of color?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- handoflixue 11mo agoThere's a big difference between first-order and second-order effects. If you explicitly check the box that says "show this job only to old white men" then we can prove your intent was to discriminate. If you advertise at a golf club, we have no such proof. Also, unless the golf club is discriminating, female golfers are just as able to see the ad -vs- male golfers.
- flir 11mo agoI'd bet a chunk of cash that it's segmenting people, at least initially. And the "gender A" segment are seeing the ads that are popular with the "gender B" segment at a far lower rate, or not at all. So it's not an individual's revealed preferences, it's a group's revealed preferences. And that's where the discrimination comes in.
- mrighele 11mo agoNot op, but if I was paying for ads on a platform, I want to make the best use of my money, and target users that may more likely react positively. If this means that ads looking for mechanics are more likely to be seen by men, so be it, why should I show them to somebody not interested ? Unless somebody says explicitly "no women", there is no discrimination in my opinion.
- a4isms 11mo agoReminds me of an old argument that if I'm running a restaurant, and if customers don't want to be served by coloured people or homosexuals, I shouldn't have to hire them. It's bad for business, what other reason do I need? At some point, we have to face the fact that there are two kinds of freedom: The freedom TO something-or-other, and the freedom FROM something-or-other. And the two are often in tension, requiring actual judgment calls and weighing of values, because there is no one perfectly crafted set of objective rules to sort that mess out. Some people care about the freedom from algorithms not showing them ads for jobs they are qualified to do and pay better, but the companies would prefer the freedom TO primarily hire whomever they please and advertise to whomever they please. Those two freedoms are in tension. If the freedom from gender discrimination in the marketplace freedom doesn't matter to you, or matters les than the freedom for someone else TO advertise only to men, well, I can see that you are consistent in your beliefs of things I deeply disagree with.
- torben-friis 11mo ago>why should I show them to somebody not interested ? Because interaction goes both ways. A big influencer on women not being interested could be a societal expectation that is not a job for them, which you’re unknowingly reinforcing. This is particularly important when it’s not “mechanic jobs” but “senior jobs” for example. Only male workers being “proposed” leadership positions over time leads to a statistically significant imbalance.
- IanCal 11mo agoThat’s a pretty simple rule but allows lots of deliberate ways to significantly reduce one group. You have however written a thing here that’s fine - it’s totally fine if your advert is seen more by men. But what you want, and what we as a society generally want, is for those ads to be shown to likely candidates regardless of gender. Given two equally qualified people, do you want your ads to only be shown to one of them, because the other is a woman? I assume not because you want to hire th best person not the best man. The issue isn’t that the ads are shown to more men because they target things like “has said they have worked as a mechanic and are looking for a job” and that happens to be more for men, the accusations is that Facebook is specifically using your gender to determine what job adverts to show you.
- potatoproduct 11mo agoTo ban this would mean in principle you need to ban any kind of algorithm that uses user and/or activity data for any platform. Ie. No content recommendations on reddit, tikok, facebook, youtube, amazon, twiter, etc.
- tmoertel 11mo agoNot the OP, but: This is actually a thorny problem. Say you have an advertising system that knows nothing about a user’s gender. This system, by construction, cannot vary its ad selections based on gender. But the system does remember whether users have expressed interest in the ads it has previously shown them. Now say you have a job that in general appeals to one gender almost exclusively. The system will, given time, learn which users are interested in ads for this job. Those users will just happen to be almost exclusively of one gender. If the ad system stops showing ads for this job to the users who have demonstrated they don’t want to see them, is that gender discrimination? One can make an argument either way. But either way, it’s not going to be a clear-cut argument. There’s some subtlety required.
- rowanG077 11mo agoTaken to its logical conclusion you essentially have to make targeted ads illegal. Now it's gender, next it's race, then it's socioeconomic standing. Then it's age. Etc etc.
- em-bee 11mo agofor job ads that is exactly right. discrimination in hiring is already illegal, and therefore logically targeted jobs ads are illegal too.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 11mo agoI think making targeted ads illegal is a great idea all by itself. It would kneecap the entire surveillance and data industry built around tracking people for f**g ads. The gov will still track you though, but that's a different nut to crack.
- Ekaros 11mo agoI wonder if this should also apply to more traditional areas. Say TV and magazines. So advertisers should not be able to choose which demographics they target via proxy. That is you should not be able to choose say magazine or tv slot based on demographics.