This week, Meta won a legal victory over former employee Sarah Wynn Williams, who recently published a memoir of her time entitled “The Careless People: Warning Stories of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism.”
The arbitrator determined that the company had a valid argument that Wynn-Williams, who worked for Facebook (now Meta) from 2011 to 2017, could have breached the non-separated agreement that he signed when he left the company. The ruling says Wynn-Williams is temporarily prohibited from promoting it. [her] Control, from further publication or distribution” – her book until private arbitration is over.
However, “careless people” are still available for purchase, and in fact, they could benefit from the “Streisand effect,” which helps them to make it even more public. As of Sunday afternoon, “The Careless People” was the third bestselling book on Amazon.
Macmillan, who published “careless people” through the imprint’s Flat Iron Book, said in a statement that the arbitrator’s decision “does not affect the publisher” and that it “will continue to support and promote the book.”
The publisher added that it “is appalling meta’s tactics to be silent.” [its] The authors use the non-segregated clause in their retirement agreement. ”
“To be clear, the arbitrator’s order does not refer to the claims of careless people,” McMillan said. “This book continues to be committed to the publication of such important books after a thorough editing and review process.”
“Cautionless People” offers what New York Times reviewers described as “dark, funny and truly shocking” looks within their relationship with Facebook, particularly China and other governments. (Wynn-Williams’ role on Facebook included his role as director of global public policy.)
“I was there for seven years. If I had to summarise it in a sentence, I think it would have started as a hopeful comedy and ended with darkness and regret,” Wynn Williams wrote in his memoir.
She added.[M]On OST day, working on Facebook’s policy wasn’t like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli, or seeing a bunch of 14-year-olds who have dumped all over the world what they bought and bought and saw a superpower and a sinister amount of money. ”
Wynn-Williams also reportedly filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This claims that Facebook created a plan in 2015 to set up a “chief editor” who could censor certain content on behalf of the country’s ruling party or shut down Chinese sites.
In a statement, Meta spokesman described “careless people” as “an outdated and previously reported combination of claims. [Meta] And false accusations about our executives” and Wynn-Williams are “employees who ended eight years ago due to poor performance.”
“We don’t operate our services in China today,” the Meta spokesman continued. “It’s no secret that we were once interested in doing it as part of Facebook’s efforts to connect the world. This was widely reported 10 years ago. We ultimately chose not to look into ideas we explored. Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.”
“Cautionless People” recounts the unpleasant encounter between Joel Kaplan, now vice president of global public policy, and Wynn Williams, who claims to have taken root on her at work events, telling her that she made “strange comments” about her husband.
Mehta said it investigated Wynn Williams’ harassment allegations and found it to be “misleading and unfounded.”
As to whether the company is simply trying to silence the whistleblower criticism, the spokesman said, “The whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not the disgruntled activists trying to sell the book.”
Current and former Facebook employees have also criticised Wynn-Williams’ memoirs. Former Staffer Mike Lognin said “I sat next to Sarah for 18 months when we worked in our New York office,” and insisted that the book “has a lot of lies there, so I don’t even know where to start.”
Wynn-Williams discussed the meta pushback in a business insider interview that took place prior to the arbitration ruling, characterising criticism from the company and former colleagues as distractions. Asked about whether the book was confirmed facts, she said, “I think the problem with meta is to use this to not answer questions myself. What I want is that we don’t fall into distractions.”
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