According to the study by researchers at the University of Southern California, Facebook targeted an Instacart delivery ad to a female audience and a Domino’s Pizza delivery ad to a male-heavy viewer.
Facebook users may no longer learn about jobs for which they are qualified, because the company’s tools can direct ads at a particular gender excessively “directly beyond what can be legally justified,” university researchers said in a study released Friday. has been published.
According to the study, in one of three examples that yielded similar results, Facebook ran an Instacart delivery mail ad targeted at a female audience and a Domino’s Pizza delivery ad at a male-heavy viewer.
The study by researchers from the University of Southern California has mostly female drivers and Dominoes mostly males.
In contrast, Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn showed the delivery job ads at Dominoes to about the same percentage of women as the Instacart ad.
“The advertising delivery of Facebook could lead to skewed job advertisements by gender above what can be legally justified by possible qualifications,” the study said. The finding reinforces the argument that Facebook’s algorithms may be in violation of U.S. anti-discrimination laws, he added.
Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said the company was responsible for “many signals to try to advertise people in which they will be most interested, but we understand the concerns raised in the report.”
Amid lawsuits and regulatory investigations into discrimination by advertising targets, Facebook has tightened controls to prevent customers from excluding some groups from seeing jobs, housing and other ads.
But researchers remain concerned about bias in artificial intelligence (AI) software that chooses which users see an ad. Facebook and LinkedIn have both said they are studying their AI for what the technology industry calls ‘equity’.
Ashvin Kannan, vice president of LinkedIn Engineering, said the results of the study “are consistent with our own internal review of our job advertising ecosystem.”