One of the first Meta employees is to prosecute the company due to sexual harassment, sexual discrimination and revenge, according to a lawsuit this week in Washington State.
Kelly Stonik, who spent 15 years in the company and ascends to the rank of manager In the case She faced a episode of gender -based discrimination and harassment that lasted shortly after its employment in 2009 until it was demobilized in January 2024.
She claims that the case was that dead failed to take action after she was reported to be sexual harassment and assault; She took revenge against her after she marked the video game producer as racist and perhaps harmful to minors; She was routinely passed for promotions in favor of men in her team.
By the time when it was accelerated, Stonik stipulates the lawsuit that was on a medical leave due to PTSD. Her mental condition was severely affected by work under alleged discriminatory circumstances in a dead to the extent that she was still receiving medical treatment, according to the case filed at the King County Supreme Court in Washington.
Meta Tercy Clayton spokesman declined to comment on the launch of the litigation.
The lawsuit comes at a time when Meta and the founder of Mark Zuckerberg are undergoing a development that appears to be swallowing the political right. Zuckerberg sat behind President Trump in his inauguration, and the UFC president Dana White – a girlfriend, donor and supporter of Trump – placed on a dead plate, and his two. It started to employ public policy employees One of the right -wing news of news is politically.
Meta also canceled the facts of the third party and stopped its largest diversity programs, property and inclusive rights-the procedures that are in line with Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg in Bodcast Joe Rogan went to lament that companies need “male energy” because a lot of “female energy” may “neutralize” the workplace. As of 2023, About 90 % From Fortune 500 senior executives were men.
Speaking next to her lawyer, Stonik Techcrunch said that the events described in a lawsuit show a larger pattern of abuse in Meta.
“I decided to file the lawsuit when it became clear that it was the best, if not the only one, to pay accountability in Meta,” she told Techcrunch. “Meta has the opportunity to harm a scale that only technology companies can.”
“It was supposed to be the place where we left the steam.”
Stonelake started working on Facebook in 2009, at a time when the “I liked” button and “Signs” in case updates were still completely new. The company was not in general, and it was not combined on the large screen in the “Social Network”.
In the Palu Alto office, along with men who were old, she worked to build opportunities for companies to use Facebook, and according to her legal complaint.
In a lawsuit, she claims that sexual harassment was almost immediately.
During the first few weeks of her work, Stonik claims in the lawsuit that a colleague caught her while she was in a social gathering called “Al -Douri”.
The league was a common event for employees to communicate with others amid long working hours. Stonik said that senior employees such as Zuckerberg and former operations director Sherrill Sandberg attended.
“Birad Bong played with Sandberg regularly,” Stoniks told Techcrunch. “The space in which we left the steam was supposed to be because everyone was working hard.”
Through an actor, Sandberg refused to comment.
Stonik recalled jumping again in a shock when her colleague grabbed her without her consent, but she was afraid to report the accident to the Ministry of Human Resources in Mita.
“I think this is a very common experience for women, especially young women,” said Stonik. “This depends in a large part on the experiences of reporting these incidents and not going anywhere.”
Stonik remained in the company. Techcrunch told her that she was fond of Zuckerberg’s vision of a more associated world. But Stonik claims that she soon suffered sexual harassment from her manager.
During a business trip in 2011, Stonik claimed the lawsuit, her director took her for dinner, then took her to her room at the hotel, where he tried to force himself to her, and put his hands on her pants. In the lawsuit, Stonik says this manager himself later told her that she would not receive a promotional offer unless she slept with him. When she refused, she was not promoted.
She continued to harass her manager, as she claimed, and Stonik was transferred to Seattle from the Palu Alto office in 2012. Before transferring it, it reported its manager for harassment, yet no measures were taken and remained in the company for years without result, the case claims.
Once Stonelik moved to Seattle, it rose steadily through the administration until it reached the exit level in 2017. In this new role, Stonik claims that its director was harassed and discriminated against, which led to the perpetuation of the session that she believed had escaped years ago.
Stonelake details of the lawsuit that during the Living Lives Matter protests (BLM) in 2020, it faced its manager because it changed his personal image on Facebook to the blue Matter Lives code, which is usually seen as refuting BLM. According to the suit, I told him how her diversified team could receive the image, as Meta is the personal Facebook Facebook pages reflecting the company.
“We have explicitly told us that our personal Facebook pages are important to consider them as adults of the company,” Stonik told Techcrunch.
The director of Stonik replied to her by saying: “The black children begin innocent, and between that time, and when they got (such) by the police, they enter the gangs and get the crime, and real issues are social services and education,” the lawsuit.
Stonik went to Mita’s human resources, but she claims that she did not receive any support. The case claims that Stonik has been passed twice for promotions, while her male colleagues have been upgraded.
“We did not have a plan to maintain people’s safety.”
Stonik moved to Meta Laborators in 2022 to lead the marketing of products for the virtual real social network, Horizon Worlds. Techcrunch told her that she was excited to work on such a central product in the imagined Metaverse of Zuckerberg.
Stonik says she has led “going to the market” strategies to bring horizon worlds to wider fans, and to open access to teenagers, international markets and mobile users.
But as a pioneer in this product, StOneke raised concerns that Horizon Worlds had not had sufficient safety systems to keep users under the legal age outside the platform; It also claims in the lawsuit that it has placed a sign of racist behavior patterns on the application, which has spread due to the lack of strong tools of moderation in the content.
“The leadership team was aware that in one of the tests, it took 34 seconds on average to enter the platform before it was called users who suffer from black avatar racist insults including” N-Word “and” Monkey “, as she claims The lawsuit.
“We were expanding quickly, and we had no plan to maintain people’s safety,” Stonik told Techcrunch.
Stonik says she was excluded from weekly driving meetings after she raised these concerns. Then, according to the lawsuit, StOneke was rejected by another offer in January 2023.
After that, I went on an emergency medical leave to receive treatments for suicide ideas and post -trauma disorder, according to the lawsuit. Stonik was informed that it would be left in January 2024 as part of the collective workers in Meta.
If we look back at the time in Meta, Stonik still remembers the joy of watching Zuckerberg March side by side Celebrations of pride in San Francisco In 2013, she said she was vibrant by Zuckerberg Start title At Harvard University in 2017 when he announced: “Every generation expands the circle of people we consider” one of us. “For us, it now includes the whole world.”
Now, Stonik says, she realizes that these measures may be performance.
“I thought that when I got more and more senior … I will only be able to protect more people to change culture,” said Stonik. “My experience was that the more I got more than one senior, the more my colleagues did, and I noticed that the greater the number of great men, the more they say the challenge.”
