It’s probably not a big deal for a Twitter team to get together and play some beer pong. Maybe in another climate, it wouldn’t even be a big deal to call said party a “frat party”.
But when all of Silicon Valley, itself included, is facing criticism for a severe problem with gender diversity – it’s probably not the best of ideas.
Yet, it happened.
Silicon Valley US: @Twitter is having a #Frat party for employees. #Lovewhereyouwork #diversitymatters #brogrammers. pic.twitter.com/WkX4aHHl6g
— Global Tech Women (@GlobalTechWomen) July 22, 2015
The party featured a “Twitter Frat House” sign and branded beer pong, as you can see.
The image above was first posted by a Twitter employee, but was quickly removed. Of course, nothing is every really removed from the internet, and the image soon went viral.
Twitter has apologized, with a spokesperson calling the theme “ill-chosen.”
“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,” spokesman Jim Prosser said in a statement to Fusion. “We’ve had discussions internally with the organizing team, and they recognize that this theme was ill-chosen.”
Twitter’s last diversity figures showed that the company was 70% male overall – 90% male in tech roles and 79% male in leadership roles. The company has promised to work on its diversity problems, saying it is “wholly committed to building a representative workforce, and is dedicated to ensuring fairness in all people decisions, including hiring, promoting, and paying.”
Oh, and you might’ve forgotten, but Twitter is also embroiled in a gender discrimination lawsuit.