Pinterest is arguably one of the most unproblematic apps to use or exist on, but for Ifeoma Ozoma, a Nigerian and former staff at Pinterest, it was a hellish work environment. Ozoma worked at Pinterest as a public policy manager; engaging with the press, elected officials, and health experts.
In an interview with the Guardian UK, Ozoma revealed that racial discrimination was the anthem of the social networking service. She was subjected to hurtful racists comments and had to fight to get a reasonable wage compared to the white colleagues. One time when a colleague freely gave her personal information to hate sites, the company remained mum and wouldn’t address or investigate the situation. And having called the attention of the CEO, Ben Silbermann via email on the issue and several other racist encounters she faced, he promised to look into the issue but never did a follow-up.
It was a painful decision for Ozoma to quit the job because her non-disclosure agreement (NDA) forbade her from telling her reason for quitting. Something she wanted to do to prevent more harm on other black staff. The last straw for her, however, was on 15th June 2020, when Pinterest openly declared its support for the ‘Black Lives Matter movement. She was angered by the company’s public support of the movement for racial justice when she had experienced racism internally. She decided to speak up.
Ozioma’s allegation against Pinterest was confirmed by Aerica Shimizu Banks, her former colleague who also walked the same ill-fated shoes while working for the company. Banks without batting an eyelid narrated series of unfair payment and racist comments from the manager. They both left the company about the same time in June 2020.
Pinterest has so far refused to comment directly on the allegations but hinted to the Guardian UK that it was against their policy to discuss employees as a way of upholding the privacy of parties involved.
On her part, Ozoma has now co-sponsored a bill called ‘Silenced No More,’ to protect workers who speak up on injustice despite signing an NDA to allay the risk. She also secured funding from the Minderoo Foundation’s Frontier Technology Initiative to support her ‘Silenced No More’ bill to educate shareholders on how to pressure companies to change NDA rules. “This is not a replacement for federal action, but in a situation, like we have, where it’s really hard to get laws passed at the federal level, we can introduce change in the form of a shareholder resolution so a company decides to adopt it before they’re forced to by legislation.” She said.
