Lexi Larson, 25 year old senior account manager in Colorado, shared on TikTok that she'd recently started a job in the tech industry and which came with a $40,000 increase to her salary. In the now deleted videos, Lexi was open about her career change, salary negotiation, and life in the tech industry. She then posted an update video explaining how those videos got her fired from her job only two weeks after starting.
In the now deleted video, Lexi explained "TikTok got me fired. A couple weeks ago, I started sharing how I got a job in the tech industry. Well, I don't work at the job anymore because they fired me. I had to sign a bunch of stuff, so I'm, like, really nervous about going too far into detail here. But basically, my employer found my TikTok and really, really did not like that I was sharing my salary and stuff like that. Even though I'm very aware that talking about salary is federally protected - you can't get fired for that - I did take all of those videos down just because, you know, they were my employer and I didn't wan them to be mad at me or not like me or something. But then, like two days later, after they talked to me about my TikTok account, they ended up firing me because they said me having this account was a security concern because I could post something private about the company on my TikTok account. And I did specifically ask, like, 'Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?' And they said not at this time, I have not, but it could happen at any time in the future, so they're just not going to take that risk with me."
While discussing salary is often discouraged by employers, it is illegal to punish employees for doing so, even online, according to the US National Relations Board. Many users in the comments encouraged Lexi to speak with a lawyer regarding her firing.
Lexi said in an interview with Buzzfeed that after being fired, she reached out to her employer from her previous job and was able to get her position back, though she was saddened by the pay decrease. She want on to say that she still believes in the importance of pay transparency. "Salary transparency is the way of the future. It's a growing trend among millennial and Gen Z, and I believe our generation is committed to ending the wage gap. Salary transparency is one of the main ways we can do that. Discussing pay is the only way women and people of color learn if they are being underpaid. I believe companies that push back against salary transparency are pushing back against positive change, and they will be remembered as being on the wrong side of history."