Certainly one of Meta’s earliest workers is suing the corporate for sexual harassment, intercourse discrimination, and retaliation, in accordance with a lawsuit filed this week within the state of Washington.
Kelly Stonelake, who spent 15 years on the firm and rose to the rank of director, alleges within the lawsuit she confronted a cycle of gender-based discrimination and harassment that persevered from shortly after her hiring in 2009 to when she was laid off in January 2024.
She alleges within the go well with that Meta didn’t take motion after she reported sexual harassment and assault; retaliated in opposition to her after she flagged a online game product as racist and probably dangerous to minors; and was routinely handed over for promotions in favor of males on her workforce.
By the point she was laid off, Stonelake states within the go well with she was on prolonged medical go away for post-traumatic stress dysfunction. Her psychological state was so severely broken from working underneath alleged discriminatory circumstances at Meta that she remains to be receiving medical remedy, in accordance with the lawsuit filed within the King County Superior Courtroom in Washington.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton declined to remark citing pending litigation.
The lawsuit comes as Meta and founder Mark Zuckerberg endure an evolution that seems to be shifting to the political proper. Zuckerberg sat behind President Trump at his inauguration, put UFC boss Dana White — a pal, donor, and supporter of Trump — on Meta’s board, and has began hiring public coverage employees from politically right-leaning information shops.
Meta additionally eradicated third-party fact-checking and halted its greatest range, fairness, and inclusion packages — actions which might be in step with Trump’s insurance policies. In the meantime, Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to lament that firms wanted “masculine power” as a result of an excessive amount of “female power” had “neutered” the office. As of 2023, round 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs had been males.
Talking alongside her lawyer, Stonelake informed TechCrunch that the occasions described in her lawsuit illustrate a bigger sample of abuse at Meta.
“I made a decision to file the lawsuit when it grew to become clear that was the perfect, if not the one, strategy to drive accountability at Meta,” she informed TechCrunch. “Meta has the chance to do hurt on a scale that solely tech firms can.”
“It was purported to be the place the place we let off steam”
Stonelake began working at Fb in 2009, at a time when the “like” button and “tagging” pals in standing updates had been nonetheless brand-new improvements. The corporate wasn’t public but, nor had it been dramatized on the large display screen in “The Social Community.”
She labored on the Palo Alto workplace, alongside males who had been a long time her senior, on constructing alternatives for companies to make use of Fb, she informed TechCrunch, and in accordance with her authorized criticism.
In her lawsuit, she alleges that the sexual harassment began nearly instantly.
Throughout her first few weeks of employment, Stonelake alleges within the go well with {that a} colleague grabbed her crotch whereas at an organization social gathering known as “League.”
League was a preferred occasion for workers to commune with others amid their lengthy, demanding working hours. High-ranking workers like Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg attended, Stonelake stated.
“I performed beer pong with Sheryl [Sandberg] usually,” Stonelake informed TechCrunch. “It was purported to be the house the place we let off steam as a result of everybody was working so laborious.”
By means of a consultant, Sandberg declined to remark.
Stonelake recalled leaping again in shock when her colleague grabbed her with out her consent, however she was apprehensive about reporting the incident to Meta’s human assets division.
“I believe that’s a reasonably widespread expertise for ladies and particularly younger girls,” Stonelake stated. “That’s based mostly largely on experiences of reporting these incidents and never going wherever.”
Stonelake stayed on the firm. She informed TechCrunch she was enamored with Zuckerberg’s imaginative and prescient for a extra related world. However Stonelake alleges she quickly skilled sexual harassment from her supervisor.
Throughout a enterprise journey in 2011, Stonelake alleges within the lawsuit, her supervisor took her out to dinner, then escorted her to her lodge room, the place he tried to pressure himself on her, placing his arms down her pants. Within the lawsuit, Stonelake says this similar supervisor later informed her she wouldn’t obtain a promotion except she slept with him. When she declined, she was not promoted.
Harassment from her supervisor continued, she alleges, and Stonelake transferred to Seattle from the Palo Alto workplace in 2012. Earlier than she transferred, she reported her supervisor for harassment, but no actions had been taken and he stayed on the firm for years with out consequence, the lawsuit alleges.
As soon as Stonelake relocated to Seattle, she steadily rose by administration till she reached the director degree in 2017. On this new function, Stonelake alleges her supervisor harassed and discriminated in opposition to her, perpetuating the cycle she thought she escaped years earlier.
Stonelake particulars within the go well with that throughout the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020, she confronted her supervisor as a result of he modified his Fb profile image to a Blue Lives Matter image, which is usually seen as a rebuttal to BLM. In line with the go well with, she informed him about how the image could possibly be obtained by their various workforce, as Meta considers workers’ private Fb pages to be reflective of the corporate.
“We’re explicitly informed that our private Fb pages are necessary to contemplate as senior leaders of the corporate,” Stonelake informed TechCrunch.
Stonelake’s supervisor responded to her by saying, “Black boys begin out harmless, and between then and after they received [sic] shot by police, they’re entering into gangs and entering into crime, and the actual points are with social providers and schooling,” the go well with alleges.
Stonelake went to Meta’s human assets, however alleges she obtained no assist. The go well with claims Stonelake was twice handed over for promotions, whereas her male colleagues had been promoted.
“We didn’t have a plan for a way we’d hold individuals protected”
Stonelake transferred to Meta’s Actuality Labs in 2022 to guide product advertising and marketing for the digital actuality social community, Horizon Worlds. She informed TechCrunch that she was excited to work on such a central product in Zuckerberg’s imagined metaverse.
Stonelake says she led “go-to-market” methods to convey Horizon Worlds to broader audiences, opening entry to youngsters, worldwide markets, and cell system customers.
However as a pacesetter on this product rollout, Stonelake raised issues that Horizon Worlds didn’t have sufficient security methods to maintain underage customers off the platform; she additionally alleges within the go well with that she flagged patterns of racist habits on the app, which proliferated as a consequence of a scarcity of strong content material moderation instruments.
“The management workforce was conscious that in a single take a look at, it took a mean of 34 seconds of coming into the platform earlier than customers with Black avatars had been known as racial slurs together with the ‘N-word’ and ‘monkey,’” the go well with alleges.
“We had been quickly increasing, and we didn’t have a plan for a way we’d hold individuals protected,” Stonelake informed TechCrunch.
Stonelake says she was excluded from weekly management conferences after she raised these issues. Then, in accordance with the go well with, Stonelake was denied one other promotion in January 2023.
Afterward, she went on emergency medical go away to obtain therapies for suicidal ideas and post-traumatic stress dysfunction, in accordance with the go well with. Stonelake was knowledgeable that she can be let go in January 2024 as a part of mass layoffs at Meta.
Trying again at her time at Meta, Stonelake nonetheless remembers the enjoyment of watching Zuckerberg march alongside LGBTQ+ workers and allies throughout San Francisco’s Delight festivities in 2013. She stated she felt invigorated by Zuckerberg’s graduation deal with at Harvard in 2017 when he declared: “Each era expands the circle of individuals we take into account ‘one in all us.’ For us, it now encompasses all the world.”
Now, Stonelake says, she realizes these actions could have been performative.
“I assumed that as I received increasingly senior… I might solely be capable to shield extra individuals to alter the tradition,” stated Stonelake. “My expertise was that the extra senior I received, so did my friends, and I observed that the extra senior males had been, the much less tolerance they needed to be challenged.”
