Twitter Threw Itself an Unfortunate Frat Party

Company apologizes for 'ill-chosen' event
By Brownie Marie,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 23, 2015 8:09 AM CDT
Twitter Threw Itself an Unfortunate Frat Party
Photo from the "Twitter Frat House" party   (Twitter/GlobalTechWomen)

Ahh, hindsight. While in the midst of a gender-discrimination lawsuit, some Twitter employees decided it was a good idea to throw a frat party. The now-controversial event took place on Tuesday, with Fusion hearing from a source that it was thrown for the company's revenue team in San Francisco. A female Twitter employee allegedly posted a photo of the party to Twitter, and that image was picked up by Global Tech Women, which tweeted it with the following caption: "Silicon Valley US: @Twitter is having a #Frat party for employees. #Lovewhereyouwork #diversitymatters #brogrammers." The image shows a keg, pizza boxes, a beer pong set-up, a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and a sign reading "Twitter Frat House" in Greek-style letters.

The tech giant was in March hit by a suit from former software engineer Tina Huang, who claims that Twitter's promotion process is secretive and discriminatory toward women, reports the New York Times. CNET adds that the Huang alleges she was one of at least 50 women affected, and the suit seeks class-action status. A rep for the 70%-male company has apologized. "This social event organized by one team was in poor taste at best, and not reflective of the culture we are building here at Twitter," Jim Prosser told Fusion. "We've had discussions internally with the organizing team, and they recognize that this theme was ill-chosen." (More Twitter stories.)

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