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Google gender-bias lawsuit tossed

A lawsuit by three female former Google employees claiming the tech giant paid women less than men has been dismissed, but may reappear in a different form.

The women — Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease and Kelli Wisuri — filed suit in September, alleging Google had a “sexist culture” and systematically discriminated against women by segregating them into lower-paying jobs and career tracks, while men with equivalent qualifications leaped ahead.

Google, which is also facing a federal probe over alleged underpayment of women, has consistently denied paying women less than men, and says its own annual analysis shows no gap in pay between the genders.

Now, a California state court judge has thrown out the lawsuit because in seeking class-action status, it cast too wide a net.

The plaintiffs had sought to include in the suit all women employed by Google during the previous four years. But San Francisco Superior Court Judge Mary Wiss said Dec. 4 that the legal action was inappropriate because it attempted to cover all the female employees during that time period, Reuters reported Dec. 6.

Wiss gave the three women 30 days to file a new complaint “on behalf of only those women who faced pay discrimination,” according to Reuters.

“Wiss said the plaintiffs’ claims were vague, and that they must show how specific groups of women were affected by Google’s pay policies.”

The judge also said two of

the three plaintiffs hadn’t shown that they did comparable work to men who were allegedly paid more, Reuters reported.

James Finberg, lawyer for the women, said they would file a new complaint by early January that “makes clear that Google violates the California Equal Pay Act … by paying women less than men for substantially equal work in nearly every job classification,” according to Reuters. — Ethan Baron

Facebook banning women who call men ‘scum’

Facebook confirms it’s suspending the accounts of women who call men “scum” in the wake of the sexual harassment scandals that have sparked the #MeToo conversation on social media and beyond.

“We understand how important it is for victims of harassment to be able to share their stories and for people to express anger and opinions about harassment,” a spokeswoman for the social networking giant told SiliconBeat Tuesday. In fact, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg addressed sexual harassment over the weekend, warning of a backlash against women and urging companies to do better when they’re told about such instances.

But the spokeswoman said Facebook draws “the line when people attack others simply on the basis of their gender.”

So if men call women scum, they’re also supposed to face consequences, per the social networking giant’s community standards.

Similarly, race is a protected class, so racial slurs are theoretically not allowed on Facebook and should also result in a ban.

But according to a website where people are sharing their stories about being suspended by Facebook, the company’s enforcement of its community standards are uneven.

The stories on Facebook Jailed include that of writer and comedian Rae Sanni, who includes a screenshot of someone telling her: “kill yourself, .”

Sanni wrote on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that she has “reported the dozens of racist and sexist slurs I was called on public posts and messaged privately, and weirdly, none of them went against FB’s terms of service.” However, she said her post in which she called men “scum” in solidarity with a friend — her co-host on the podcast “Misandry with Marcia and Rae,” who was banned by Facebook — was removed by the company.

When Facebook users find objectionable content on the site, they can report it to the company. Those complaints are sent to content reviewers, who number in the thousands and work around the clock all over the world.

In their podcast Monday, Sanni and Marcia Belsky talked about being banned by Facebook.

Sanni said she has been targeted by right-wing trolls on social media. On Facebook, where she had been temporarily banned after a discussion with someone over NFL players’ protests over racism and police brutality, she felt powerless to respond to people being racist and sexist toward her.

“They’re silencing the people being harassed,” Belsky said. She also said she has reported a post that said “women are scum” and it was not removed.