People are dragging Google for claiming that its vegan salad emoji is promoting 'inclusion and diversity' — and they're pointing out that the company has much bigger problems to fix

• Google user experience manager Jennifer Daniel tweeted on Wednesday that the company has made the salademojivegan in order to promote diversity.
• People on Twitter mocked Google's decision, claiming that the emoji change was not going to do anything to improve diversity and inclusion at the company.
• Many Twitter users pointed out that Google has much bigger problems with discrimination and lack of diversity that it should focus on fixing.
• While some people thought that this emoji change was a "light-hearted" attempt to improve inclusivity at the company, others thought Google was merely "pandering."
• There is significant evidence showing that Google continues to experience problems with diversity and inclusion.

On Wednesday, Google user experience manager Jennifer Daniel announced on Twitter that the company has made the salad emoji vegan in order to promote inclusion. According to Daniel, the removal of the egg from the salad emoji is "evidence" that Google is making diversity a priority.

However, many people on Twitter mocked Google for claiming that it was solving its diversity problems by simply removing the egg from the salad emoji. People also pointed out that Google had much bigger problems with diversity that they should focus on fixing, citing Google's "toxic workplace" and decision to "air anti-gay ads."

Daniel claimed that the new vegan salad emoji is evidence that Google is making diversity a priority.

In her tweet, Daniel said that there has been "big talk about inclusion and diversity" at Google. To prove that the company is making diversity and inclusion a priority, she pointed to the change in the salad emoji.

As the before-and-after image shows, Google has removed the egg from the salad emoji. Daniel tweeted that now it was a "more inclusive vegan salad."

However, many people on Twitter did not seem to be very impressed with Google's attempt at promoting diversity and inclusion, claiming that the emoji change was not going to fix any real problems.

People pointed out that Google has much bigger problems to fix — such as its "toxic workplace" and its decision to "air anti-gay ads."

Game designer and writer Elizabeth Sampat's tweet alludes to the harassment experienced by Google employees who volunteered as diversity advocates. As USA Today reported, diversity advocates at Google were targeted and doxxed by their own coworkers for trying to bring more diversity to Google's staff. Their personal information and comments in internal company forums were leaked to the public and published on far-right websites, subjecting them to harassment and mistreatment.

And this tweet from variety caster David Janes seems to refer to LGBT vlogger Chase Ross's allegations that YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, has been demonetizing videos that contain words like "transgender," causing him to lose views and revenue. Ross and several other LGBT vloggers also pointed out that anti-LGBT advertisements promoting conversion therapy have been appearing before their videos on YouTube.

While some people said that this was a "light-hearted" attempt to strengthen inclusivity, others said that it felt like Google was merely "pandering."

Though it is unclear what the actual intent behind this decision was, there is evidence suggesting that Google faces issues with discrimination and a lack of diversity.

Whether or not Google's decision to make the salad emoji vegan was a genuine albeit light-hearted attempt to strengthen inclusivity, there is evidence that Google faces issues with discrimination and lack of diversity.

Google's 2017 report revealed that 75% of Google's leaders globally are men, only 20% of tech employees are women, and a mere 2% of its employees in the US are black. The data clearly shows that Google mostly employs white men — a trend that has not changed much since 2014.

Furthermore, Google has been accused of "systemic compensation disparities" by the US Department of Labor. Although Google has denied the accusations that it underpays women, Glassdoor did find that women at Google are paid 16% less than men because fewer women are in high paying positions at the company.

Last year, Google employee James Damore wrote an anti-diversity manifesto that claimed that biological differences between men and women are the reason why women are underrepresented in the tech industry. A female Google employee told Business Insider that she, and other women at the company, felt "attacked" by Damore's "baseless claim" that women are prone to "neuroticism" and therefore biologically unsuited for tech roles.

And on Thursday, Google engineer Irene Knapp confronted the board of executives over the lack of diversity and inclusion at the company, claiming that there has been a "lack of clear, communicated policies and actions to advance diversity and inclusion." Knapp also said that the "chilling effect of harassment and doxxing has impaired productivity and company culture," and that the lack of support from Google's Human Resources has left "minority communities unprotected."

INSIDER reached out to Google for comment on the emoji update and issues with diversity and discrimination and did not hear back at the time of publication.

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