Meta gained a authorized victory this week towards Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former worker who not too long ago 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 sound 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 ebook till non-public arbitration concludes.
Nonetheless, “Careless Individuals” stays obtainable for buy, and will the truth is be benefitting from the “Streisand Impact,” during which makes an attempt to suppress info solely serve to additional publicize it. As of Sunday afternoon, “Careless Individuals” was the quantity three bestselling ebook on Amazon.
Macmillan, which printed “Careless Individuals” by its imprint Flatiron Books, stated in a press release that the arbitrator’s determination “has no affect” on the writer and that it’ll “completely proceed to help and promote” the ebook.
The writer added that it’s “appalled by Meta’s techniques to silence [its] creator by 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 ebook went by a radical enhancing and vetting course of, and we stay dedicated to publishing necessary books similar to this.”
“Careless Individuals” gives what a New York Occasions reviewer described as a “darkly humorous and genuinely surprising” look inside Fb — significantly 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 approach 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 sum of money, as they jet world wide to determine what energy has purchased and introduced them.”
Wynn-Williams additionally reportedly filed a whistleblower criticism 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 capable of censor sure content material or shut down the positioning in China on behalf of the nation’s ruling get together.
In a press release, 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 in the present day,” the Meta spokesperson continued. “It’s no secret we had been as soon as concerned about doing in order a part of Fb’s effort to attach the world. This was broadly 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 vp of worldwide public coverage, and Wynn-Williams, who claims he floor himself towards 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 the corporate is solely attempting to silence a whistleblower’s criticism, the spokesperson stated, “Whistleblower standing protects communications to the federal government, not disgruntled activists attempting 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 ebook “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 carried out earlier than the arbitration ruling, characterizing criticisms from the corporate and former coworkers as distractions. Requested about whether or not the ebook had been fact-checked, she stated, “I believe Meta’s drawback is utilizing this to not reply the questions themselves. What I might love is for us to not fall into the distraction.”
