What happened

The French equalities regulator, Défenseur des Droits, ruled that Facebook’s system for displaying job advertisements treats users differently based on their gender, constituting indirect discrimination.

The investigation followed a complaint from Global Witness, together with French women’s rights groups Fondation des Femmes and Femmes Ingénieures, which pointed to data showing that ads for traditionally male-dominated jobs (e.g., mechanics, pilots) were disproportionately (94 percent) shown to men, while roles like preschool teaching or psychology went mostly to women (93 percent).

The watchdog has given Meta (Facebook’s parent company) three months to implement corrective measures to make job-ad targeting non-discriminatory.

Meta rejected the decision. A spokesperson said they “disagree with this decision and are assessing our options."

Why it happened

The root cause is algorithmic bias: Facebook’s ad delivery algorithm appears to reinforce and amplify gender stereotypes in the workforce, not just reflecting existing patterns but potentially exacerbating them.

There is a clear transparency and accountability gap: even when advertisers did not explicitly target by gender, Facebook’s system still delivered job ads in a skewed way. The regulator highlighted a lack of sufficient controls and monitoring to prevent such bias.

Because algorithmic decisions are often opaque (“black box”), it is difficult for users or third parties to know how or why certain ads are shown, thereby weakening corporate accountability.