[patricklynch]

No, because the fact that I'm neither Chinese nor likely to read Chinese Daily News doesn't actually prevent me from seeing your ad.

If you posted "Help Wanted" flyers in the middle of a college campus for a part-time cashier job, some 52 year old could--in theory--be walking by the quad on his way to a Frisbee golf game.

It's when you explicitly add in logic to filter out a protected class that you may be in trouble.

[losteverything]

But the ad is targeting. Ads always target.

So if this is indeed true then FB should simply splash enough protected classes to chalk off the requirement. That should not be hard.

We have this really great machine to reach people. FB is just one way to attract talent. Why ruin it

Remember, FB is voluntary

[patricklynch]

I don't think it works that way. If you add logic that says:

"here's group A, who we really want to target, and here's group B, the protected class we want to exclude. throw 10% of all impressions at group B so we're not violating federal law."

Then I think you may still be breaking the law. Because you're explicitly favoring one group over another. Whether the ratio is 100%/0% or 90%/10% probably doesn't affect the underlying legal problem.

> Why ruin it

At some point many years ago society latched on to the idea that "equal opportunity employment" was a civil right worth protecting with federal law. One of the major draws of facebook, if you happen to be an employer not wholly committed to this idea, seems to be that you kind of have a way to effectively bypass it. There are people who would equate "ruining facebook" in this scenario with "protecting fundamental civil rights," which is more important than creating a favorable environment for recruiters.

That's more or less the argument I think.