A team of journalists purchased job listing advertisements for several occupations in France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and Spain. In all countries, Facebook showed their childcare worker job adverts almost exclusively to women, while their truck driver job adverts were shown almost exclusively to men (this effect was also visible on Google, albeit possibly to a lesser extent).
This experiment replicates findings from the US, where researchers demonstrated a similar 'optimisation' based on race. This could also occur in Europe. Advertisers who rely on such systems could be in violation of Europe's anti-discrimination legislation. Google did not respond to the team's requests for comments, but after they sent their questions, they disabled the team's advertiser account. Similarly, Facebook did not respond to the team's requests for comments, but did ask for the names of the journalists the team was working with, possibly in an attempt to intimidate.
Photo image: AlgorithmWatch
