Workday is at the center of a collective action lawsuit that alleges its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered hiring tools discriminate against applicants over 40 years old, violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Derek Mobley, a Black, disabled man in his 40s, filed a lawsuit in February 2023, claiming he applied for over 100 jobs without success, according to ITPro. “Despite his qualifications, Mobley was allegedly denied employment for every one of the 100-plus applications that he submitted to companies using Workday’s platform,” the lawsuit states . Workday provides cloud-based software to support businesses’ financial management as well as the hiring process for new employees. Workday’s initial motion to dismiss the case was granted, allowing for amendments to be made. However, the judge later denied its attempt to dismiss the newly amended complaint. A judge ruled on May 16 that Mobley’s age discrimination claims could proceed as a collective action...

Meta is discontinuing its fact-checking system. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan announced that the tech giant would transition to a community notes model — similar to the system on Elon Musk’s X — to “restore free expression,” according to a news release. “Meta’s platforms are built to be places where people can express themselves freely,” said Kaplan in the release. “That can be messy. On platforms where billions of people can have a voice, all the good, bad, and ugly is on display. But that’s free expression.” Kaplan noted that societal and political pressure to moderate content has pushed the company to develop increasingly complex systems to manage content across its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram , in recent years. “Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he added. Zuckerberg also believes the...

Bias is often at the root of protracted issues in society. The insurance industry, for example, isn’t exempt from prejudicial attitudes. Salene Hitchcock-Gear, president of Prudential Individual Life Insurance at Prudential Financial, spoke on the history of exclusion in the 1940s and 1950s during the 2023 AFROTECH™ Conference. “Way back when things were first getting started, there were a lot of exclusions on who could be covered for insurance — Black Americans were part of that exclusion,” Hitchcock-Gear said on the Learning Lab stage. “There was a lot of bias around the kind of data that we actually have to use to underwrite, i ncluding race and health. There was a lot of presumption about lifestyle. A lot of things that just did not really lend itself to treating people fairly.” Because insurance products can be critical for financial stability and creating wealth, she shared that Prudential Financial continues to try to modernize and use digital tools to increase access to...

Sarah Brown is empowering Black women through her beauty supply store. According to the Columbia Missourian, Brown is the proud owner of Beauty Trap, reportedly the first Black beauty supply store in Columbia, MO. Outside of being a business owner, Brown has been in the beauty space for more than 26 years, using her cosmetology license to work as a hairstylist. Her transition into business ownership would be inspired by her mentor, Mary Smith, f ounder of Mary Smith’s Beauty Salon, who encouraged her foray into the cosmetology business. “I taught Sarah how to do hair for Black customers, something they don’t teach you at school,” Smith told the Columbia Missourian. “Sarah and I have both taken classes for hair over the years, and we teach each other what we have learned.” Brown was emboldened to open two salon locations, though they both had to close for several months due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively impacted many small business owners. “While we were...

From the looks of the current state of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. It’s for this reason that people have been sharing statistics on how harmful its bias can be. According to a 2021 report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), AI tools — built by humans — have been found to worsen discriminatory practices against marginalized groups such as housing discrimination.

Founder Robiar Smith is following in the footsteps of her father.

James Oliver Jr. wants to make it easier for entrepreneurs to find co-founders.

Uploading job postings while looking for people to fill open positions is a fairly standard process. However, what’s said to be a description for one company’s roles may have shown its true colors in what the higher-ups are looking for.