Facebook helping dozens of companies by excluding older workers from job ads

A new report by ProPublica and The New York Times says Facebook has been helping dozens of companies to target employment ads only for young people. The companies include Verizon, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Target which placed ''recruitment ads limited to particular age groups.''

The social network also used its targeting abilities to recruit its own employees from certain age groups.

According to Washington labour lawyer Debra Katz who spoke to ProPublica, the practice is ''blatantly unlawful,'' and under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. The law prohibits bias in the hiring process against anyone older than 40 years. According to the site, the move could also possibly Facebook in violation of other laws on both the state and local level which prohibit aiding or abetting age discrimination in employment.

Facebook acknowledged in a statement that ProPublica has pointed to other instances of ''serious failures on our part'' in its advertising systems. However, it added that its own recruitment efforts are ''designed to reach all ages and all backgrounds,'' adding that ''age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: It helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work.''

According to ProPublica, Facebook also argues that the Communications Decency Act's Section 230, the same law which protects websites from being held liable for content posted by users, applies to its job postings.

Meanwhile, a few weeks, ago a Verizon ad on Facebook to recruit applicants for a unit dealing with  financial planning and analysis showed a smiling, millennial-aged  woman seated at a computer and promised that new hires could look forward to a rewarding career in which they would be ''more than just a number.''

The promotion appeared on the Facebook feeds of users 25 to 36 years old who lived in the nation's capital, or had recently visited there, and had demonstrated an interest in finance. For the majority of the hundreds of millions of people who check Facebook every day, the ad did not exist.