One of Meta’s earliest employees is suing the company for intimacyual intimidatoring, intimacy bias, and retaliation, according to a legal case filed this week in the state of Washington.
Kelly Stonelake, who spent 15 years at the company and rose to the rank of honestor, alleges in the legal case she faced a cycle of gfinisher-based bias and intimidatoring that persisted from lowly after her hiring in 2009 to when she was lhelp off in January 2024.
She alleges in the suit that Meta flunked to apshow action after she telled intimacyual intimidatoring and attack; retaliated aobtainst her after she flagged a video game product as discriminatory and potentipartner damaging to inmeaningfuls; and was routinely passed over for promotions in prefer of men on her team.
By the time she was lhelp off, Stonelake states in the suit she was on extfinished medical depart for post-traumatic stress disorder. Her mental state was so strictly harmd from toiling under alleged discriminatory conditions at Meta that she is still receiving medical treatment, according to the legal case filed in the King County Superior Court in Washington.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton degraded to comment citing pfinishing legal action.
The legal case comes as Meta and set uper Mark Zuckerberg undergo an evolution that materializes to be shifting to the political right. Zuckerberg sat behind Plivent Trump at his inauguration, put UFC boss Dana White — a frifinish, donor, and helper of Trump — on Meta’s board, and has begined hiring accessible policy staff from politicpartner right-leaning novels outlets.
Meta also leave outd third-party fact-examineing and stoped its hugegest diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — actions that are in line with Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to frailnt that companies necessitateed “masculine energy” because too much “feminine energy” had “neutered” the toilplace. As of 2023, around 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs were men.
Speaking alengthyside her lawyer, Stonelake tageder TechCrunch that the events depictd in her legal case show a bigr pattern of mistreatment at Meta.
“I determined to file the legal case when it became evident that was the best, if not the only, way to drive accountability at Meta,” she tageder TechCrunch. “Meta has the opportunity to do harm on a scale that only tech companies can.”
“It was presumed to be the place where we let off steam”
Stonelake begined toiling at Facebook in 2009, at a time when the “appreciate” button and “tagging” frifinishs in status modernizes were still brand-novel innovations. The company wasn’t accessible yet, nor had it been dramatized on the huge screen in “The Social Nettoil.”
She toiled at the Palo Alto office, alengthyside men who were decades her ageder, on produceing opportunities for businesses to use Facebook, she tageder TechCrunch, and according to her lhorrible grumblet.
In her legal case, she alleges that the intimacyual intimidatoring begined almost instantly.
During her first restrictcessitate weeks of employment, Stonelake alleges in the suit that a colleague grabbed her crotch while at a company social collecting called “League.”
League was a well-understandn event for employees to commune with others amid their lengthy, needing toiling hours. Top-ranking employees appreciate Zuckerberg and establisher COO Sheryl Sandberg joined, Stonelake shelp.
“I carry outed beer pong with Sheryl [Sandberg] normally,” Stonelake tageder TechCrunch. “It was presumed to be the space where we let off steam because everyone was toiling so difficult.”
Thraw a reconshort-termative, Sandberg degraded to comment.
Stonelake recalled jumping back in shock when her colleague grabbed her without her consent, but she was apprehensive about telling the incident to Meta’s human resources department.
“I skinnyk that’s a pretty standard experience for women and especipartner youthful women,” Stonelake shelp. “That’s based in big part on experiences of telling these incidents and not going anywhere.”
Stonelake stayed at the company. She tageder TechCrunch she was enamored with Zuckerberg’s vision for a more combineed world. But Stonelake alleges she soon sfinished intimacyual intimidatoring from her handler.
During a business trip in 2011, Stonelake alleges in the legal case, her handler took her out to dinner, then directed her to her toastyel room, where he tryed to force himself on her, putting his hands down her pants. In the legal case, Stonelake says this same handler tardyr tageder her she would not get a promotion unless she slept with him. When she degraded, she was not upretaind.
Harassment from her handler persistd, she alleges, and Stonelake transferred to Seattle from the Palo Alto office in 2012. Before she transferred, she telled her handler for intimidatoring, yet no actions were apshown and he stayed at the company for years without consequence, the legal case alleges.
Once Stonelake relocated to Seattle, she steadily rose thraw handlement until she achieveed the honestor level in 2017. In this novel role, Stonelake alleges her handler annoyed and discriminated aobtainst her, perpetuating the cycle she thought she escaped years earlier.
Stonelake details in the suit that during the Binestablishage Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020, she faceed her handler because he changed his Facebook profile picture to a Blue Lives Matter symbol, which is standardly seen as a rebuttal to BLM. According to the suit, she tageder him about how the picture could be getd by their diverse team, as Meta ponders employees’ personal Facebook pages to be echoive of the company.
“We’re cltimely tageder that our personal Facebook pages are meaningful to ponder as ageder directers of the company,” Stonelake tageder TechCrunch.
Stonelake’s handler reacted to her by saying, “Binestablishage boys begin out bfrailless, and between then and when they got [sic] stoasty by police, they’re getting into gangs and getting into crime, and the authentic publishs are with social services and education,” the suit alleges.
Stonelake went to Meta’s human resources, but alleges she getd no help. The suit claims Stonelake was twice passed over for promotions, while her male colleagues were upretaind.
“We didn’t have a schedule for how we would retain people shielded”
Stonelake transferred to Meta’s Reality Labs in 2022 to direct product labeleting for the virtual truth social nettoil, Horizon Worlds. She tageder TechCrunch that she was excited to toil on such a central product in Zuckerberg’s envisiond metaverse.
Stonelake says she led “go-to-labelet” strategies to transport Horizon Worlds to expansiveer audiences, discdisthink abouting access to teenagers, international labelets, and mobile device users.
But as a directer in this product rollout, Stonelake elevated worrys that Horizon Worlds did not have adequate shieldedty systems to retain underage users off the platestablish; she also alleges in the suit that she flagged patterns of discriminatory behavior on the app, which proliferated due to a inestablishage of sturdy satisfied moderation tools.
“The directership team was conscious that in one test, it took an mediocre of 34 seconds of go ining the platestablish before users with Binestablishage avatars were called racial slurs including the ‘N-word’ and ‘monkey,’” the suit alleges.
“We were rapidly enbiging, and we didn’t have a schedule for how we would retain people shielded,” Stonelake tageder TechCrunch.
Stonelake says she was leave outd from weekly directership greetings after she elevated these worrys. Then, according to the suit, Stonelake was denied another promotion in January 2023.
Afterward, she went on aelevatency medical depart to get treatments for self-destructive thoughts and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the suit. Stonelake was inestablished that she would be let go in January 2024 as part of mass layoffs at Meta.
Looking back at her time at Meta, Stonelake still recalls the delight of watching Zuckerberg march alengthyside LGBTQ+ employees and allies during San Francisco’s Pride festivities in 2013. She shelp she felt invigorated by Zuckerberg’s commencement insertress at Harvard in 2017 when he proclaimd: “Every generation enbigs the circle of people we ponder ‘one of us.’ For us, it now encompasses the entire world.”
Now, Stonelake says, she authenticizes those actions may have been carry outative.
“I thought that as I got more and more ageder… I would only be able to shield more people to change the culture,” shelp Stonelake. “My experience was that the more ageder I got, so did my peers, and I acunderstandledged that the more ageder men were, the less tolerance they had to be contestd.”
