Why tech’s gender problem is nothing new

Decades after women were pushed out of programming, Amazon's AI recruiting technology carried on the industry's legacy of bias

A recent report revealed Amazon's AI recruiting technology developed a bias against women because it was trained predominantly on men's ri(C)sumi(C)s. 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.