📣🚨 Action Alert | Facebook for Developers Website Gives the Illusion of Greater Diversity at the F8 Refresh Conference

This is the Keynote section of Facebook’s F8 Refresh developer’s conference. Looks like there is an AAPI woman delivering the Keynote address, right?

a screenshot of the Keynote section of the Facebook for Developers F8 Refresh conference Agenda page

WRONG! It’s actually this guy. In fact, the entire homepage of F8 Refresh on the Facebook for Developers website is a facade. It shows 2 men and 2 women, one of whom is a woman of color, yet when you look at the event agenda and count up the speakers, only 39% of them are women and only 18% are women of color. Given the images that were used, you’d think Facebook might have more women of color speaking and/or leading sessions, but instead they just used them to create the illusion of greater diversity.

Sadly, this practice is all too common. We hope that organizers will learn from Facebook’s mistake and curate diverse speaker lists — not just advertise them.

#Facebook is using women’s images on the #F8Refresh developer conference site to give the illusion of diversity, but @GenderAvenger is on to them. The numbers say otherwise. Don’t just show the women, @fbplatform, actually let them speak. #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/action-alert-facebook-f8-refresh-conference-diversity-illusion