One in all Meta’s earliest workers is suing the corporate for sexual harassment, intercourse discrimination, and retaliation, in response to 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 continued from shortly after her hiring in 2009 to when she was laid off in January 2024.
She alleges within the swimsuit 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 crew.
By the point she was laid off, Stonelake states within the swimsuit she was on prolonged medical go away for post-traumatic stress dysfunction. Her psychological state was so severely broken from working beneath alleged discriminatory circumstances at Meta that she continues to be receiving medical therapy, in response to the lawsuit filed within the King County Superior Court docket 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 can be according to Trump’s insurance policies. In the meantime, Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to lament that firms wanted “masculine vitality” as a result of an excessive amount of “female vitality” had “neutered” the office. As of 2023, round 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs have been males.
Talking alongside her lawyer, Stonelake instructed 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 instructed TechCrunch. “Meta has the chance to do hurt on a scale that solely tech firms can.”
“It was speculated 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 have been nonetheless brand-new improvements. The corporate wasn’t public but, nor had it been dramatized on the massive display in “The Social Community.”
She labored on the Palo Alto workplace, alongside males who have been many years her senior, on constructing alternatives for companies to make use of Fb, she instructed TechCrunch, and in response to her authorized criticism.
In her lawsuit, she alleges that the sexual harassment began virtually instantly.
Throughout her first few weeks of employment, Stonelake alleges within the swimsuit {that a} colleague grabbed her crotch whereas at an organization social gathering referred to as “League.”
League was a preferred occasion for workers to commune with others amid their lengthy, demanding working hours. Prime-ranking workers like Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg attended, Stonelake stated.
“I performed beer pong with Sheryl [Sandberg] repeatedly,” Stonelake instructed TechCrunch. “It was speculated to be the house the place we let off steam as a result of everybody was working so exhausting.”
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 Fb’s human sources division.
“I feel that’s a reasonably widespread expertise for girls and particularly younger girls,” Stonelake stated. “That’s primarily based largely on experiences of reporting these incidents and never going anyplace.”
Stonelake stayed on the firm. She instructed TechCrunch she was enamored with Zuckerberg’s imaginative and prescient for a extra linked 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 palms down her pants. Within the lawsuit, Stonelake says this similar supervisor later instructed 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 have 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 way of administration till she reached the director degree in 2017. On this new position, Stonelake alleges her supervisor harassed and discriminated in opposition to her, perpetuating the cycle she thought she escaped years earlier.
Stonelake particulars within the swimsuit that in the course of 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. Based on the swimsuit, she instructed him about how the image could possibly be acquired by their numerous crew, as Meta considers workers’ private Fb pages to be reflective of the corporate.
“We’re explicitly instructed that our private Fb pages are essential to think about as senior leaders of the corporate,” Stonelake instructed TechCrunch.
Stonelake’s supervisor responded to her by saying, “Black boys begin out harmless, and between then and once they obtained [sic] shot by police, they’re entering into gangs and entering into crime, and the actual points are with social companies and schooling,” the swimsuit alleges.
Stonelake went to Meta’s human sources, however alleges she acquired no help. The swimsuit claims Stonelake was twice handed over for promotions, whereas her male colleagues have been promoted.
“We didn’t have a plan for the way we’d hold individuals secure”
Stonelake transferred to Meta’s Actuality Labs in 2022 to guide product advertising for the digital actuality social community, Horizon Worlds. She instructed 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 machine customers.
However as a pacesetter on this product rollout, Stonelake raised considerations that Horizon Worlds didn’t have enough security techniques to maintain underage customers off the platform; she additionally alleges within the swimsuit that she flagged patterns of racist conduct on the app, which proliferated as a consequence of an absence of strong content material moderation instruments.
“The management crew was conscious that in a single take a look at, it took a median of 34 seconds of getting into the platform earlier than customers with Black avatars have been referred to as racial slurs, together with the ‘N-word’ and ‘monkey,’” the swimsuit alleges.
“We have been quickly increasing, and we didn’t have a plan for the way we’d hold individuals secure,” Stonelake instructed TechCrunch.
Stonelake says she was excluded from weekly management conferences after she raised these considerations. Then, in response to the swimsuit, Stonelake was denied one other promotion in January 2023.
Afterward, she went on emergency medical go away to obtain remedies for suicidal ideas and post-traumatic stress dysfunction, in response to the swimsuit. Stonelake was knowledgeable that she could 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 Satisfaction festivities in 2013. She stated she felt invigorated by Zuckerberg’s graduation tackle at Harvard in 2017 when he declared: “Each era expands the circle of individuals we contemplate ‘one in every of us.’ For us, it now encompasses the whole world.”
Now, Stonelake says, she realizes these actions might have been performative.
“I assumed that as I obtained increasingly senior … I’d solely be capable to defend extra individuals to vary the tradition,” stated Stonelake. “My expertise was that the extra senior I obtained, so did my friends, and I seen that the extra senior males have been, the much less tolerance they needed to be challenged.”
