Tag Archives: Facebooks

Examining Gender Bias in Facebook’s Job Ads: Insights from France’s Equality Monitoring Regulations

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France’s equality regulator has determined that Facebook’s job advertising algorithm is discriminatory towards women, following an investigation that revealed a bias in job ads for mechanics favoring men, while ads for kindergarten teaching positions were predominantly shown to women.

The watchdog group, Défenseur des Droits, contended that Facebook’s targeted job ad system discriminates based on gender, which constitutes indirect discrimination. The regulator advised Facebook and its parent company, Meta, to implement measures to eliminate discriminatory practices in advertising and granted the company three months to inform French authorities of its actions.

According to the regulator’s ruling, “The system implemented for distributing job listings treats Facebook users differently based on their gender, thereby resulting in indirect gender discrimination.”

This ruling followed an initiative from Global Witness, a campaign organization focused on examining the influence of major tech firms on human rights, which posted advertisements on Facebook that included links to various job opportunities across countries like France, the UK, Ireland, and South Africa.

The findings revealed that, notably in France, 90% of individuals seeing ads for mechanic positions were men, whereas the same percentage of those encountering kindergarten teacher ads were women. Additionally, 80% of viewers for psychologist job ads were women, while 70% of those seeing pilot job ads were men.

Global Witness, along with French women’s rights organizations La Fondation des Femmes and Femme Ingénue, which had reached out to the rights group, praised the ruling.

In a joint statement, they remarked, “This seems to be the first instance where a European regulator has ruled that a social media platform’s algorithms exhibit gender discrimination, marking significant progress in holding these platforms accountable under existing legislation.”

“This decision conveys a powerful message to all digital platforms that they will be held responsible for such biases,” stated attorney Josephine Sheffet, representing the plaintiffs. “This legal principle establishes a crucial precedent for future legal actions.”

Mr. Mehta disputed the ruling, with a spokesperson stating: “We disagree with this decision and are exploring our options.”

Meta had agreed to modify Facebook’s algorithms in 2022 after allegations from the U.S. Department of Justice suggested that the platform’s housing advertising system discriminated against users based on criteria like race, religion, and gender.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Return to Facebook’s origins with the New Friends tab integration

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Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and one of his top EUs, Tom Allison, were discussing how to rebuild Facebook for the future of social networking.

Zuckerberg, who grew Facebook to a $1.5 trillion company renamed Meta from the dorm room project, wanted to regain some of the original rationales for social networks, or what he called the “OG Facebook” vibe, Alison said. After adding many years of features, executives felt that some of Facebook’s important features were dead.

So they asked themselves: Why not build some features similar to old Facebook?

On Thursday, Meta did it with a simple adjustment. The company now includes a separate news feed for users, featuring posts shared only by people’s friends and family.

A feature called The Friends tab replaces the app’s tab that displays new friends’ requests or suggested friends. Instead, Friends Tab will display a scroll feed of posts such as photos, video stories, text, birthday notifications, and friend requests. For now, Facebook users are only available in the US and Canada.

“We’re looking forward to seeing you in the facebook app,” said Allison, head of the Facebook app. “We’re making sure there’s still a place on Facebook for something like this, something you shouldn’t get lost in the modern social media mix.”

The new feed is a sudden departure from the way social media has evolved over the past decade. The rise of apps like Tiktok has become accustomed to seeing feed posts from influencers and content creators. Other companies followed suit. Meta’s apps, including Instagram, have begun to lean more towards recommended content to attract people for a longer period of time.

Now people see apps like YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok as something similar to TV.

Not everyone is welcoming shifts. When Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, it was intended to help college students connect with friends on campus. As the app becomes more popular, it is now helping all users stay up to date with posts from friends and family.

So, when Zuckerberg announced in 2022 that Meta would insert recommended content on Facebook from people who were not connected to users, many users rebelled. Many people first discovered recommended content – it relied on surface suggestions – it was jarring. After some criticism, Zuckerberg slightly reduced the amount of such content added to people’s Facebook feeds.

Still, that didn’t stop meta from accepting algorithmically recommended content. In recent years, much of the people’s feed on Facebook and Instagram has been dominated by creators, businesses and brands. Recommended content, such as Meta’s video product Reels, has led people to spend more time on the app, the company said.

Meta has no plans to stop adding recommended content to users’ feeds, Alison said in an interview. For now, the company doesn’t think The Friends Tab is more popular than the recommended home feed.

And there could be more changes to Facebook. Meta is planning to bring in other features and updates to Facebook next year, making social media still “social,” Alison said.

“Frankly, it’s the heart of Facebook,” he said.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Sheryl Sandberg Steps Down as Director of Meta | Facebook’s Parent Company

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It’s been about two years since Sheryl Sandberg stepped down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

As Chief Operating Officer of Meta, Mr. Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model.

The 54-year-old announced he would step down from his role in June 2022 and step down from the Meta board after his term ends in May.



“The Meta business is strong and well-positioned for the future, so we feel now is the right time to exit,” Sandberg said in a Facebook post, adding that he has asked the company’s advisors to He added that he will take office.

Sandberg joined Facebook from Google in 2008 and will step down as head of operations at Meta in 2022, a position he held for 14 years.

In response to Sandberg, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said he looked forward to “a new chapter together.”

Sandberg, once Zuckerberg’s second-in-command, was one of the company’s most visible executives.

While serving as chief operating officer of Mr. Zuckerberg’s social media empire, she covered the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the use of the Facebook platform in organizing the 2021 Capitol riot, and Facebook’s massive success. faced a number of controversies, including continued concerns about mining user data to power its advertising business.


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Prior to joining Facebook, Mr. Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and served as chief of staff at the U.S. Treasury under former President Bill Clinton.

Sandberg, a Harvard graduate, is the author of several books, including the 2013 feminist manifesto “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”

Source: www.theguardian.com