Toptal was told that if it planned to continue advertising on the site, it would have to kick the image of dark-haired, Argentinian web developer Florencia Antara to the curb in place of what LinkedIn described in an email as, "different images, related to the product."
In a blog post titled "In Defense of Female Engineers," CEO Taso Du Val made his disgust clear:
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. Unfortunately we’re banned from
showing anything except 100%, all male software advertisements from now
on and so, that’s what you’ll be getting. I’m disappointed both on a
personal and professional level. I expect better.
It’s sick.
Du Val writes that
he then tried to re-enable the disabled ads, which led to Toptal's
account getting banned from LinkedIn. It would only be reactivated if
the ads, featuring the women, were changed.After Toptal went public with claims of sexism, LinkedIn reinstated the ads.
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