Facebook Ads Draws Class Action For Algorithmic Gender Bias

• An advocacy group representing female truck drivers accused Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META) Facebook of steering ads for lucrative jobs away from women and older workers based on the type of role.

• Real Women in Trucking filed the lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Washington Post reports.

• They alleged that the underlying algorithm powering Facebook's ad system is far more likely to show ads promoting jobs in certain blue-collar professions such as trucking, firefighting, manufacturing, and construction to men.

• Also Read: Meta Pares Back Presence In New York Location As Slowdown Weighs

• Similarly, Facebook is more likely to show ads to female users for roles historically considered women's work, like housekeeping, home care, and child care.

• Facebook delivers these ads in a biased fashion even when the marketer has deemed them eligible.

• Peter Romer-Friedman, one of the group's lawyers, was previously involved in a discrimination case against Facebook that led to a 2019 settlement in which the social media company agreed to make sweeping changes to its ad platform.

• In 2019, Facebook agreed to stop allowing advertisers to use gender, age, and Zip codes to market housing, credit, and job openings to its users.

• That change came after a Washington state attorney general probe and a ProPublica report found that Facebook was letting advertisers conceal housing ads from African Americans and other minorities.

• In 2022, Meta agreed to build a new automated advertising system that the company says will help ensure that housing-related ads are delivered to a more equitable population.

• Price Action: META shares traded higher by 1.89% at $122.72 on the last check Friday.

• Image by Ohmydearlife from Pixabay

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