Netflix has doubled down.
According to The Verge, the online streaming giant has fired the Black (and pregnant) employee who organized the upcoming Oct. 20 walkout from the company. The woman, whose identity has not been released for fear of online reprisal and harassment, also declined to speak to the press about her recent termination.
Netflix’s position is that the employee in question leaked internal metrics to the press — metrics which subsequently ended up in a special report for Bloomberg. The metrics, according to the outlet, detail how much the streaming giant paid for the controversial Dave Chappelle special, “The Closer,” which is at the core of the upcoming employee walkout on the 20th.
“We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” Netflix confirmed in a statement to the outlet. “We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company.”
But a former employee of the company, who spoke to The Verge on the condition of anonymity, has a different story.
“All these white people are going around talking to the press and speaking publicly on Twitter and the only person who gets fired is the Black person who was quiet the entire time,” the former employee said. “That’s absurd, and just further shows that Black trans people are the ones being targeted in this conversation.”
In the recent past, Netflix has suspended Terra Field, a trans software engineer who sat in on a company meeting that was above and beyond her pay grade. Field has since been reinstated. Per The Verge, the company is now sending employees details about what meetings they’re allowed to attend to prevent firings and suspensions from happening in the near future.
