Meta gained a authorized victory this week towards Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former worker who just lately printed a memoir of her time on the firm titled “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.”
An arbitrator dominated that the corporate has made a sound argument that Wynn-Williams, who labored at Fb (now Meta) from 2011 to 2017, might have violated the non-disparagement settlement she signed when leaving the corporate. The ruling states that Wynn-Williams is quickly prohibited from selling — or, “to the extent within [her] control, from further publishing or distributing” — her e-book till personal arbitration concludes.
Nonetheless, “Careless People” stays out there for buy, and will in truth be benefitting from the “Streisand Effect,” through which makes an attempt to suppress info solely serve to additional publicize it. As of Sunday afternoon, “Careless People” was the quantity three bestselling e-book on Amazon.
Macmillan, which printed “Careless People” by its imprint Flatiron Books, mentioned in a press release that the arbitrator’s resolution “has no impact” on the writer and that it’ll “absolutely continue to support and promote” the e-book.
The writer added that it’s “appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence [its] author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.”
“To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims within Careless People,” Macmillan mentioned. “The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this.”
“Careless People” gives what a New York Occasions reviewer described as a “darkly funny and genuinely shocking” look inside Fb — significantly its relationship with China and different governments. (Wynn-Williams’ roles at Fb included serving as director of world public coverage.)
“I was there for seven years, and if I had to sum it up in a sentence, I’d say that it started as a hopeful comedy and ended in darkness and regret,” Wynn-Williams wrote within the memoir.
She added, “[M]ost days, working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them.”
Wynn-Williams additionally reportedly filed a whistleblower grievance with the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee alleging that, in its eagerness to function in China, Fb created a plan in 2015 to put in a “chief editor” who would have been in a position to censor sure content material or shut down the positioning in China on behalf of the nation’s ruling occasion.
In a press release, a Meta spokesperson described “Careless People” as “a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about [Meta] and false accusations about our executives,” and described Wynn-Williams is “an employee terminated eight years ago for poor performance.”
“We do not operate our services in China today,” the Meta spokesperson continued. “It is no secret we were once interested in doing so as part of Facebook’s effort to connect the world. This was widely reported beginning a decade ago. We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.”
“Careless People” recounts uncomfortable encounters between Joel Kaplan, now Meta’s vp of world public coverage, and Wynn-Williams, who claims he floor himself towards her at a piece occasion, described her as “sultry,” and made “weird comments” about her husband.
Meta mentioned it investigated Wynn-Williams’ allegations of harassment and located them “misleading and unfounded.”
As for whether or not the corporate is just attempting to silence a whistleblower’s criticism, the spokesperson mentioned, “Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books.”
Present and former Fb staff have additionally criticized Wynn-Williams’ memoir. Ex-staffer Mike Rognlien mentioned he “sat next to Sarah for 18 months when we both worked at the New York office” and claimed the e-book “has so many lies in it I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Wynn-Williams mentioned Meta’s pushback in a Business Insider interview performed earlier than the arbitration ruling, characterizing criticisms from the corporate and former coworkers as distractions. Requested about whether or not the e-book had been fact-checked, she mentioned, “I think Meta’s problem is using this to not answer the questions themselves. What I would love is for us not to fall into the distraction.”
