Pinterest Settles Lawsuit Over Workplace Toxicity and Discrimination

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 25 November 2021, 02:11 pm

Pinterest has settled a lawsuit alleging that executives in the company enabled discrimination in the workplace. The financial details of the settlement between the social media platform and the shareholder were not shared publicly.

Pinterest Settled Lawsuit

As part of the settlement, Pinterest is releasing its former employees from nondisclosure agreements in cases of discrimination.

The social media company, which became popular for sharing images, is also committing $50 million to different reforms to increase equity and inclusion across the company and its product, according to NBC News.

Seth Magaziner, who acted on behalf of the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island, which is the shareholder of Pinterest that filed the lawsuit, said that they pushed for the reforms to support the employees with a fair and safe workplace and to strengthen the company's brand and performance by ensuring that it is inclusive and diverse.

The reforms target the allegations of Aerica Shimizu Banks and Ifeoma Ozoma, two previous employees of Pinterest who went public last year with accusations of discrimination at the company.

Also Read: Pinterest's New Feature Adds Pins From WHO, CDC To Curb Vaccine Misinformation

Ozoma, who helped lead public policy and social impact at the company, said that her colleagues published her personal information online without her knowledge, a process that is called doxxing.

The incident happened after she suggested that Pinterest add an advisory warning to the contents from Ben Shapiro, a political commentator.

Banks, who led the public policy and social impact operations at the company's Washington office, said that her manager lied to her when she was negotiating her salary and appeared in front of colleagues. Both of them did the same level of work as their manager yet they made less money, according to CNET.

Two months after the two women came forward, Francoise Brougher, the former Chief Operating Officer of Pinterest, sued the company and said she was given unfair feedback and was paid less. She was fired after telling the co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann, about the complaints.

Brougher settled with Pinterest for $22.5 million, according to The New York Times.

After the allegations went public, the shareholders sued the company, saying that executives had breached their duty by allowing or ignoring the long-standing discrimination and retaliation issue at Pinterest.

Pinterest Promises to Make Changes

Now, Pinterest promised to create a workplace that is free of discrimination and that they will form an office of an ombudsman to respond to the employee complaints, according to The Verge.

The company also stated that it will conduct a pay equity audit across all employees twice a year and take the necessary steps to maintain equity.

The company is updating its policy to ban doxxing, and it has created a process to escalate the complaints of harassment, retaliation, or discrimination involving members of the executive team or the board.

Pinterest's commitment not to enforce the nondisclosure agreements reflects work that Ozoma has done in California with a new law called the Silenced No More Act.

Ozoma has been lobbying legislators to pass Senate Bill 331 since she left Pinterest. The bill would protect employees who speak out about discrimination and harassment, even if they need to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The Silenced No More Act will go into effect on January 1, 2022.

In 2014, it was revealed that Pinterest was the most loved social media platform, despite having a lot of internal issues.

Earlier this year, Pinterest removed weight loss advertisements after it was revealed that the platform had negative effects on the mental health of its users.