Over 500 People Targeted with Harassment and Discrimination in the Tech Industry

In the wake of widespread harassment accusations in the entertainment industry, media, academia, and politics, BuzzFeed News conducted a survey asking people to share their harassment and discrimination experiences in the tech industry.

BuzzFeed News found more than 500 respondents said “they’d been targeted with harassment and discrimination — i.e., racism, sexism, ageism — while working in tech. Most said that the experiences had far-reaching implications for their careers and personal lives.”

The survey was conducted on people who identified as women, men, members of the LGBT community, and people of many different races and ethnicity. “We did not verify individual claims, beyond reaching out to people who left us their contact information and agreed to be contacted; because of the topic, verification is difficult. But the scope and the common themes that we saw in so many of these stories paint a portrait of an industry with deeply rooted problems, and they also reveal the extent to which people who have experienced harassment and discrimination find their lives irrevocably changed,” said BuzzFeed News on the results.

BuzzFeed News received over 800 responses. One woman shared that “at every single job” she “had one of the [superiors] harass” her.

“I was the only female on the 12-person management team. I was talked over in meetings and had my area of expertise ‘mansplained’ to me. I made a complaint to HR and they said they would address it. A few weeks later I was let go,” reported another woman in the BuzzFeed News online report.