LinkedIN in sexism row

Aug 06, 2013

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Job social networking site LinkedIn has found itself at the center of a sexism storm after it pulled down ad posts of a woman they deemed too attractive to be a real-life web-engineer.
The controversy began when developer networking platform Toptal posted a series of ads onto LinkedIn aimed at the web-engineering sector. However, LinkedIn quickly disabled the ads with no explanation and requested images “related to the product”, which caused a furious response from Toptal’s CEO.
“The fact of the matter is: members of the tech community (LinkedIn users) saw it as impossible that our female engineers could actually be engineers, and a leader of the tech community (LinkedIn) agreed with them,” wrote Toptal CEO, Taso Du Val in a blog post according to The Daily Dot.
“We saw extreme sexism within the tech community, from an advertising partner we work with extensively: LinkedIn,” Mr Du Val wrote. In response, a spokesperson of LinkedIn said the ads were rejected in a mistake caused by a review.

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