Meta gained a authorized victory this week in opposition to Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former worker who just lately printed a memoir of her time on the firm titled “Careless Individuals: A Cautionary Story of Energy, Greed, and Misplaced Idealism.”
An arbitrator dominated that the corporate has made a legitimate argument that Wynn-Williams, who labored at Fb (now Meta) from 2011 to 2017, could have violated the non-disparagement settlement she signed when leaving the corporate. The ruling states that Wynn-Williams is briefly prohibited from selling — or, “to the extent inside [her] management, from additional publishing or distributing” — her guide till personal arbitration concludes.
Nonetheless, “Careless Individuals” stays obtainable for buy, and will in reality be benefitting from the “Streisand Impact,” through which makes an attempt to suppress data solely serve to additional publicize it. As of Sunday afternoon, “Careless Individuals” was the quantity three bestselling guide on Amazon.
Macmillan, which printed “Careless Individuals” via its imprint Flatiron Books, stated in an announcement that the arbitrator’s determination “has no influence” on the writer and that it’ll “completely proceed to help and promote” the guide.
The writer added that it’s “appalled by Meta’s ways to silence [its] writer via the usage of a non-disparagement clause in a severance settlement.”
“To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims inside Careless Individuals,” Macmillan stated. “The guide went via an intensive enhancing and vetting course of, and we stay dedicated to publishing essential books resembling this.”
“Careless Individuals” presents what a New York Instances reviewer described as a “darkly humorous and genuinely surprising” look inside Fb — notably its relationship with China and different governments. (Wynn-Williams’ roles at Fb included serving as director of worldwide public coverage.)
“I used to be there for seven years, and if I needed to sum it up in a sentence, I’d say that it began as a hopeful comedy and resulted in darkness and remorse,” Wynn-Williams wrote within the memoir.
She added, “[M]ost days, engaged on coverage at Fb was means much less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and far more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of cash, as they jet all over the world to determine what energy has purchased and introduced them.”
Wynn-Williams additionally reportedly filed a whistleblower grievance with the U.S. Securities and Change 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 social gathering.
In an announcement, a Meta spokesperson described “Careless Individuals” as “a mixture of out-of-date and beforehand reported claims about [Meta] and false accusations about our executives,” and described Wynn-Williams is “an worker terminated eight years in the past for poor efficiency.”
“We don’t function our companies in China as we speak,” the Meta spokesperson continued. “It’s no secret we had been as soon as keen on doing in order a part of Fb’s effort to attach the world. This was extensively reported starting a decade in the past. We in the end opted to not undergo with the concepts we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg introduced in 2019.”
“Careless Individuals” recounts uncomfortable encounters between Joel Kaplan, now Meta’s vice chairman of worldwide public coverage, and Wynn-Williams, who claims he floor himself in opposition to her at a piece occasion, described her as “sultry,” and made “bizarre feedback” about her husband.
Meta stated it investigated Wynn-Williams’ allegations of harassment and located them “deceptive and unfounded.”
As for whether or not the corporate is just making an attempt to silence a whistleblower’s criticism, the spokesperson stated, “Whistleblower standing protects communications to the federal government, not disgruntled activists making an attempt to promote books.”
Present and former Fb workers have additionally criticized Wynn-Williams’ memoir. Ex-staffer Mike Rognlien stated he “sat subsequent to Sarah for 18 months once we each labored on the New York workplace” and claimed the guide “has so many lies in it I wouldn’t even know the place to start out.”
Wynn-Williams mentioned Meta’s pushback in a Enterprise Insider interview performed earlier than the arbitration ruling, characterizing criticisms from the corporate and former coworkers as distractions. Requested about whether or not the guide had been fact-checked, she stated, “I believe Meta’s drawback is utilizing this to not reply the questions themselves. What I’d love is for us to not fall into the distraction.”
