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

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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Past investigations found advertisers could tailor ads to people of a specific race or sexual orientation, and Facebook subsequently shut down those targeting options. Still, gender- and age-based targeting persists, the ACLU maintains. And if this EEOC complaint doesn't convince Facebook to clean up its gender-biased act, USA Today suggests the company could face a lawsuit.