Facebook Refuses To Share Employee Race and Gender Data

theodp writes "Back in 2007, Representative Maxine Waters asked Google's HR Chief, "How many [of Google's employees] are African-American?" After 7+ years of stonewalling, Google has pledged to finally divulge diversity data on its workforce for the first time. While the U.S. government requires all major employers to file diversity statistics with the EEOC, Google convinced the Dept. of Labor that the race and gender of its work force is a trade secret that should not have to be released to the public. Google now concedes that it has been 'reluctant to divulge that data' and 'quite frankly, we are wrong about that.' Interestingly, Facebook apparently has no such compunctions about refusing to disclose data on the racial and gender makeup of its employees, even as CEO Mark Zuckerberg lobbies Congress for changes to the makeup of the U.S. workforce. Pressed on the matter by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Facebook's annual shareholder meeting, the WSJ reports that COO and gender equality advocate Sheryl Sandberg rebuffed Jackson's request, saying, 'It's really important to share [the Facebook diversity numbers] internally, and eventually externally.'"

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all. Sharing demographic and other personal data is something they've been staunchly against since their founding. The government, being entirely unbiased toward people with enough money to buy it off, has appreciated Zuckerberg's principled stance.

I know it is PC to rant on Facebook privacy on Slashdot, but I've never understood why. It is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with. And all the people here who think (or pretend to) that Facebook privacy controls are difficult, really?? Hand in your geek card, they are and have always been quite easy, straight forward settings. If you can't handle that, you perhaps should reconsider having an internet connected PC.

Re:I wonder...

[sabri]

how many minorities Facebook hired between when the request was made and when they finally complied. Would be interesting to see before and after data.

I don't work for Facebook, but I have been on their MPK campus as a contractor many times. I can tell you from first hand experience that Facebook is a very culturally diverse environment where everyone, regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender, is welcomed. It looks like a mini San Francisco.

Jesse Jackson?

[Charliemopps]

You had me until Jesse Jackson got involved. That guy is a crook and an extortionist. Usually he's only interested in how diverse your company is until you donate to his rainbow push coalition. Suddenly it doesn't matter if you're diverse after that.

Re:Facebook just care about privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

[Facebook] is a service that you voluntarily sign up for and every time you share something you actively choose to share that info, who to share it with.

Not everyone [digitaltrends.com] signs up for it.

Google.Facebook.No highly staffed CS call centers.

[wjcofkc]

I would believe that neither company employs a substantial amount of African Americans. Why? Neither company has vast, low wage customer service call centers. Hence the reluctance to release numbers. If you don't have much experience working in customer service call centers, your first instinct is going to be to mod me down (understandably). If you do have a fair amount of experience working in low-wage CS call centers, you completely understand what I am talking about. I myself (unfortunately) do have quite a lot of experience working in customer service call centers, and have often been one of very few white people in a sea of African Americans as well as a lot women. The truth is, most large tech related companies hire some of amount of minorities and women. But when you look at the whole of the company, you quickly realize that minorities are routinely hired into marginalized positions, even when they are highly qualified sometimes even with a college degree. It's exclusive, but if you have seen it, you get what I mean.