Facebook let employers exclude women from seeing job ads, ACLU alleges

(Image credit: iStock/Stratol)

published 18 September 2018

Facebook may offer users unlimited gender options, but choosing anything other than "male" may have cost them a job.

That's what three female Facebook users found when looking for work on the social network, a new complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday alleges. The complaint is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Communication Workers of America and could be the first step toward a lawsuit against Facebook.

Screenshots attached to the EEOC complaint show how Facebook lets advertisers target their messages to "single dads," "soccer moms," and a variety of other gender-based interests. The female complainants also attached screenshots showing, when they clicked "Why am I seeing this?" on an ad, that the employers "wanted to reach men ages 21 to 50" or another specific demographic. The complaint specifically cites 10 employers found to have tailored their ads to a certain age and gender. Meanwhile, gender-based ads were outlawed in newspapers decades ago, the ACLU noted in a blog post.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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