Facebook under probe for ‘systematic bias’ in hiring

According to a Forbes report, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is probing whether Facebook has engaged in systemic racial bias following a complaint filed by an employee and two job applicants.

San Francisco: Facebook is under investigation in the US for alleged systematic bias and racial discrimination in hiring and promotions.

According to a Forbes report, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is probing whether Facebook has engaged in systemic racial bias following a complaint filed by an employee and two job applicants.

The EEOC is now investigating whether there is widespread and “systematic” racial discrimination in hiring and promotions at the social network.

A Black manager and two Black applicants who were rejected by Facebook filed the EEOC complaint.

The alleged that the social network “discriminates against Black employees” by mandating racial discrimination complaints be arbitrated in a “secret forum,” relying on “culture fit” in hiring and preferring “most white and Asian employees”.

The EEOC has not brought allegations against Facebook yet.

A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge on Saturday: “We believe it is essential to provide all employees with a respectful and safe working environment. We take any allegations of discrimination seriously and investigate every case.”

In 2018, a Facebook employee published an internal memo sent to his co-workers on his last day at the company, where he said the company mistreated its Black employees.

“In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people. Facebook can’t claim that it is connecting communities if those communities aren’t represented proportionately in its staffing,” Facebook partnerships manager Mark Luckie had said.

Facebook’s latest diversity report showed the company was short of its goal to have 50 per cent of its workforce from underrepresented groups by 2024.

Not just Facebook, Google too has been accused of racial discrimination at workplace.

In 2018, a former employee sued Google for “discrimination, harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination”, alleging that the company fired him over writing pro-diversity internal posts.

Tim Chevalier, a software developer and former site-reliability engineer at Google, was fired in November 2017 after he made several internal posts against racism and sexism, according to reports.

In 2017, three former Google employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the tech giant, accusing it of discriminating against women when it came to pay and promotions.

“Google pays women in California less than men who perform similar work and assigns female workers jobs that are less likely to lead to promotions,” alleged the three former employees who served as software engineer, communications specialist and manager at the company.