Facebook attacked by former worker over ‘intimidation, favouritism and sexism’

The contractor described her time at Facebook as ‘the most toxic work experience in my life’

Facebook has come under fire for a number of claims made by previous contractors in recent weeks (AFP)

With good pay, free meals and a job at one of the world’s leading companies, working at Facebook should be a very appealing prospect indeed.

However, a former contractor from the Facebook Trending team has described a very different environment, and one in which employees were left feeling “angry, depressed and voiceless”.

The woman, who worked previously as a news curator, has revealed how “poor management", coupled with "intimidation, favouritism and sexism” led to 15 of the 40-50 employees on the Trending team to resign since 2014, of which 10 were women.

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The contractor, who wrote anonymously for the Guardian, said the company’s mistreatment of women was the most “destructive” factor, with women frequently silenced while men were “encouraged to speak up”.

And although several women reported sexism by managers and editors to their supervisors, and highlighted the problem in their exit interviews, she claimed that nothing had been done about it.

The former exployee explained how her experience at Facebook had stayed with her, and how she is still wary of speaking up and often holds back when she has an idea.

In her article, the former curator said there was no political bias as far as she was aware, and the team were not told to suppress political stories from any side. However she did say she was “specifically trained to avoid using twitter”.

She also criticised the company for prioritising output over editorial quality, and for forcing contractors to meet targets despite “poor scheduling and miscommunication”. The team, she said, were excluded from joining internal groups, attending Facebook events and told to “watch what they say” to those in other teams.

Facebook’s Trending topics feature has recently come under fire for being bias and censoring certain results, with several former curators apparently telling Gizmodo how they were told to “inject” selected stories into the news module, even when they were not trending.

In addition, they were apparently told not to include news about Facebook and to suppress Conservative news, claims which the social media giant denied.

Facebook said that it took the allegations "very seriously" and pledged to investigate the complaint. “Facebook provides everyone – including contractors – with a respectful and safe working environment," the firm said.

"Facebook does not tolerate unlawful harassment or any mistreatment in the workplace or in a work-related situation."