Facebook has been accused of breaking equality law in the way it handles job advertising.
Campaign group Global Witness said it failed to prevent discriminatory targeting of ads and its algorithm was biased in choosing who would see them.
In an experiment, almost all Facebook users shown adverts for mechanics were men, while ads for nursery nurses were seen almost exclusively by women.
Facebook said its system shows people ads they may be most interested on
Global Witness submitted two job ads for approvals, asking Facebook not to show:
- One to women
- The other to anyone over the age of 55
And the social media giant approved both ads for publication, although it did ask the organisation to tick a box saying it would not discriminate against these groups.
Global Witness, however, pulled the adverts before they were published.
“Our system takes into account different kinds of information to try and serve people ads they will be most interested in and we are reviewing the findings within this report,” said Facebook.
