From the birth of computing to Amazon: why tech´s gender problem is nothing new
(The Guardian Business News)

Decades after women were pushed out of programming, Amazon´s AI recruiting technology carried on the industry´s legacy of biasA recent report revealed Amazon´s AI recruiting technology developed a bias against women because it was trained predominantly on men´s resumes. Although Amazon shut the project down, this kind of mechanized sexism is common and growing - and the problem isn´t limited to AI mishaps.Facebook allows the targeting of job ads by gender, resulting in discrimination in online job advertisements for traditionally male-dominated jobs from construction to policing. The practice has long been illegal in traditional print media - but Facebook´s targeting tools encourage it. Not only can this affect whether women and non-binary people can see ads; it also affects male job-seekers who are older and therefore viewed as less desirable by many employers. Facebook has come under fire for illegal advertising practices in the past: notably, it scrapped thousands of microtargeting categories after a 2016 ProPublica report showed how it allowed racial discrimination in housing ads. Continue reading...