Mariana has a crisis on her hands. She’s caught in a relationship with Evan, even though she thinks what she is doing is immoral. However, Mariana then goes to Evan and tells him that dating her boss is a bad idea, but she wants to do it anyway.
Also, there continues to be complications with her app. Conflicts arise when Mariana, who sometimes feels like her boss, who is also her boyfriend, isn’t in alignment with her about what the app is for and how it should be monitored and ran.
Mariana is now a young woman brimming with excitement over her secret workplace romance, only to be smacked directly in the face with reality. Her team tells her there is a huge problem with the app: Supposedly, a bunch of far right, white supremacists who’ve been trolling BLM, commandeered it. They’re spreading their hate, harassing other users, and have even pushed down the crowdfunding post for Malika’s bail. Mariana’s first instinct is to ban the most offensive users and hope the problem goes away. Mariana is at a crossroads: she can’t tell Evan because it’ll be bad publicity for Speckulate and Evan would probably shut the app down.
Attempting to ban certain users from a platform will only result in them getting fired up more. In turn, it will possibly inspire more of their kind to create more and more accounts on the app. They even use it to organize a counterprotest at the courthouse where the sit-in for Malika is taking place. Things are escalating both in-person and on the app and there’s really only one thing to do at this point. She needs to tell Evan so he can shut the whole thing down. She knows that her app is now forever linked to these white-supremacist groups anyway. It’s too late to save it.
The conversation with Evan imposes a moral issue for the app and the company: Evan explains the app itself is simply a platform and that they cannot police who uses it. With the app, the company cannot choose which side of the political spectrum to be on.
Evan is now someone who refuses to take a stand against hate groups. He is empowering them by keeping the app online. However, this poses a difficult life decision for Mariana. Should she stay with Evan, or leave him? There are no right answers. It’s apparent that Mariana has strong, physically feelings for Evan. It’s difficult for anyone with those types of feelings to let go of someone they care about immensely. Any way you look at it, there is no “right choice” for Mariana to make. Stay with Evan and be happy with them? Or leave him due to his refusal to shutdown the app?
With no other option, and the rising dilemma Mariana faces, she must take a course of action: she leaves the company. Flanked by her team, Mariana walks out of Speckulate, and the women have plans to build their own start-up.
So, what could this mean moving forward for Mariana and the women who left with her? Also was standing up to her boss the correct move?
