Meta employees used to sue for sexual harassment, discrimination based on gender

One of the earliest employees of Meta is the company due to sexual harassment, discrimination against gender and retaliation measures, according to a lawsuit submitted this week in the state of Washington.

Kelly Stonelake, who spent 15 years in the company and rose to the rank of a director, claims in the lawsuit It looked at a circulation of gender -specific discrimination and harassment, which existed shortly after her hiring in 2009 until it was dismissed in January 2024.

In the lawsuit that Meta had not taken any measures after reporting sexual harassment and assault. Remewing against her after she had marked a video game product as racist and potentially harmful to minors. And was routinely handed over for promotions in favor of men in their team.

When she was released, Stonelake provides the lawsuit in which she was for post -traumatic stress disorder. Her mental state was so badly damaged by working under alleged discriminatory conditions in Meta that, according to the lawsuit at the King County Superior Court in Washington, she still receives medical treatment.

The Meta spokesman Tracy Clayton refused to receive a comment in statement of legal disputes.

The lawsuit is made when META and founder Mark Zuckerberg are subjected to a development that seems to be postponed under political law. Zuckerberg was sitting behind President Trump, put UFC boss Dana White – a friend, donor and supporter of Trump – in Metas and has it began to hire the public order staff From politically right -wing news.

Meta too eliminated facts test by third -party providers and stopped his greatest Diversity, equity and inclusion programs – Actions that are in line with Trump’s policy. In the meantime, Zuckerberg made Joe Rogan’s podcast to complain that companies needed “male energy” because too much “female energy” had “continued” the workplace. From 2023, Around 90% From Fortune 500 CEOs were men.

Stonelake and her lawyer spoke with Techcrunch that the events described in their complaint illustrated a larger abuse pattern at Meta.

“I decided to submit the lawsuit when it became clear that this was the best, if not the only option, to advance the accountability at Meta,” she told Techcrunch. “Meta has the option of causing damage in a scale that can only do tech companies.”

“It should be the place where we let off steam”

Stonelake worked on Facebook in 2009, at a time when the button and “tagging” friends were still brand new innovations in status updates. The company was not yet public and was not dramatized on the big screen in “The Social Network”.

She worked in the office in Palo Alto, together with men who have been decades, to use the opportunities for companies to use Facebook, she told Techcrunch and, according to her legal complaint.

In her complaint, she claims that sexual harassment has started almost immediately.

During her first weeks of employment, Stonelake claims in the suit that a colleague had grabbed her step in a company entitled “League” after her step.

The league was a popular event for employees who were able to communicate with others in the middle of their long, demanding working hours. According to Stonelake, first -class employees such as Zuckerberg and the former Coo Sheryl Sandberg were participated.

“I regularly played beer pong with Sheryl (Sandberg),” said Stonelake to Techcrunch. “It should be the space in which we let off steam because everyone worked so hard.”

Sandberg refused to comment through a representative.

Stonelake remembered shocked when her colleague grabbed her without her consent, but she was concerned to report the incident of the HR department of META.

“I think this is a fairly frequent experience for women and especially young women,” said Stonelake. “For the most part, this is based on the experience of reporting on these incidents and nowhere.”

Stonelake stayed in the company. She said Techcrunch that she was in love with Zuckerberg’s vision for a more networked world. But Stonelake claims that she soon had sexual harassment by her manager.

During a business trip in 2011, Stonelake claimed in the lawsuit that her manager brought her to dinner and then accompanied her to her hotel room, where he tried to force himself to her and put his hands on her pants. In the lawsuit, Stonelake said that the same manager later told her that she would not receive any promotion if she hadn’t slept with him. When she rejected, she was not promoted.

The harassment of her manager continued and Stonelake moved from Palo Alto’s office in 2012 to Seattle. Before she claimed an action.

After Stonelake moved to Seattle, she stood up steadily through management until she reached the director in 2017. In this new role, Stonelake claimed that her manager molested and discriminated against it and immortalized the cycle from which she believed she had escaped for years.

Stonelake details in the suit that she was confronted with her manager during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2020 because he changed his Facebook profile image to a symbol of blue Lives Matter, which is usually regarded as refutation against BLM. According to the suit, she told him how the image could be taken from her diverse team, since Meta reflects the personal Facebook pages of employees as the company.

“We are expressly informed that our personal Facebook pages are important as the company’s managing executives,” Stonelake told Techcrunch.

Stonelake’s manager replied to her by saying: “Black boys begin innocent, and between back then and when they (sic) were shot by the police, they get into gangs and get into crime, and the real problems are with social services and education, “the suit claims.

Stonelake went to Metas human resources, but claims that she had not received any support. The lawsuit claims that Steinelake had been passed twice for promotions while her male colleagues were promoted.

“We had no plan how we would protect people.”

In 2022, Stonelake switched to Meta’s reality laboratories to lead product marketing for the social network of Virtual Reality, Horizon Worlds. She said Techcrunch that she was excited to work on such a central product in Zuckerberg’s imaginary metaverse.

Stonelake, according to Stonelake, led her to “market entry” to bring Horizon-Welten a wider audience and open access to young people, international markets and users for mobile devices.

As the leading provider of this product trollout, Stonelake said that Horizon Worlds has no appropriate security systems in order to keep minor users away from the platform. In the lawsuit, she also claims that she had marked patterns of racist behavior in the app that increased moderation tools due to a lack of robust content.

“The management team was aware that in a test it had entered the platform for an average of 34 seconds before users with black avatars as racist unrest, including the ‘n-word’ and ‘Monkey’, were called the lawsuit.

“We quickly expanded and had no plan how we humans would protect,” Stonelake told Techcrunch.

Stonelake says she was excluded from weekly leadership meetings after she had expressed this concerns. According to the lawsuit, Stonelake was refused to promote further promotion in January 2023.

After the lawsuit, she then took a medical rescue holiday to receive treatments for suicide thoughts and post -traumatic stress disorders. Stonelake was informed that it would be dismissed in January 2024 as part of Mass layoffs At Meta.

When Stonelake looked back at Meta, Stonelake still remembers the joy of watching Zuckerberg together with LGBTQ+ employees and allies during the march San Francisco’s proud festival 2013. She said she feels revitalized by Zuckerberg’s Opening address In Harvard in 2017 when he explained: “Each generation expands the circle of people that we consider as one of ourselves. For us it now includes the whole world. “

Now, says Stonelake, she realizes that these actions may have been performative.

“I thought that because I got more and more senior … I would only be able to protect more people to change culture,” said Stonelake. “My experience was that the older I got, including my colleagues, and I noticed that the more older men were, the less tolerance they had to be challenged.”