Get the latest tech news

Early Meta employee sues for sexual harassment, gender discrimination

One of Meta’s earliest employees is suing the company for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed this week

Kelly Stonelake, who spent 15 years at the company and rose to the rank of director, alleges in the lawsuit she faced a cycle of gender-based discrimination and harassment that persisted from shortly after her hiring in 2009 to when she was laid off in January 2024. She alleges in the suit that Meta failed to take action after she reported sexual harassment and assault; retaliated against her after she flagged a video game product as racist and potentially harmful to minors; and was routinely passed over for promotions in favor of men on her team. But as a leader in this product rollout, Stonelake raised concerns that Horizon Worlds did not have adequate safety systems to keep underage users off the platform; she also alleges in the suit that she flagged patterns of racist behavior on the app, which proliferated due to a lack of robust content moderation tools.

Get the Android app