Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/sarah-wynn-williams-careless-people-meta-nrffdfpmf

by macleginn • 4 months ago

858 568 4 months ago

thetimes.com

macleginn• 4 months ago

https://archive.is/DmiOw

philprx• 4 months ago

Recaptcha is taking ages

KomoD• 4 months ago

Yeah, that's intentional, it's not going to let you pass because the owner has beef with Cloudflare.

Are you using Cloudflare's DNS? That's usually the cause.

giwook3• 4 months ago

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same.

We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it.

Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

fsloth• 4 months ago

It’s also a damn good book!

More like Catch-22 than a cheap ”spill the tea” ride.

the__alchemist• 4 months ago

Done

qnleigh• 4 months ago

Also if you use Instagram regularly, consider replacing that time with something else. Does it really offer anything of value to you, compared to the harm Meta has caused?

turtletontine• 4 months ago

Or just delete your Instagram account. Really, it’s easier than you think it is. You might find you don’t even miss it.

ryandrake6• 4 months ago

Unlike an elected government, who the common people at least in theory have a chance to replace via elections, the public pretty much has no say in what these companies and their leadership are allowed to do. Nobody voted for Meta. Nobody voted for Palantir. Nobody voted for Philip Morris. You can say that someone "voted with their wallet," but that doesn't point to a viable solution. "Not voting with your wallet" essentially means becoming a hermit and living isolated in the woods. Because there are no alternate companies that are ethical. Ethics have costs, and the nature of competition means that ethical companies will always be outcompeted and die to companies who don't care to pay those cost.

CPLX• 4 months ago

The solution is to not allow concentration of corporate power at this level and to break it up when it happens anyways.

The root cause under all this IS government policy. All the giant tech companies are the product of years of already illegal behavior that was not enforced.

Noaidi3• 4 months ago

"Not voting with your wallet" essentially means becoming a hermit and living isolated in the woods.

This is a total exaggeration and just gives power to these companies. You can start here:

https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/

YOU voted for Facebook when you use it, by not installing a hosts file that blocks it and all advertisements. We do not need to use these platforms, and the less people that use them the less you will need to use it.

All we have to do is start making their profit fall and they will change. But it must be a strong and unified effort.

cousin_it• 4 months ago

The phrase "voting with your wallet" is hilarious to begin with, because it admits that rich people have more voting power and implies that's how it should be.

giwook3• 4 months ago

I don't disagree with you entirely.

But we're not powerless. I'd argue that we saw the impact we can have when we act collectively when Trump tried to pressure ABC into cancelling Jimmy Kimmel. It took ABC a few days maybe before they capitulated (again, except this time to their customers).

jmye4• 4 months ago

Nobody voted for Meta.

Of course they did - they “voted” for them every time they signed on to Facebook or Instagram or used WhatsApp, and they doubled down every time they let their children use them. They vote for them every time they elect grifters and spineless toadies to office.

These companies don’t have users by default. They have users because shitty people use shitty services made by even shittier people because they need their little hits of dopamine.

None of that, at all, has a fucking thing to do with being a “hermit living in the woods” unless you’re determined to make the contrived, obviously bullshit argument that “everything, everywhere is terrible so it’s all pointless so just keep scrolling”.

But that would be trivially asinine.

altmanaltman4• 4 months ago

The elected government can do something about these companies and their leadership if the people who elect them force it. It is not the job of the general public to regulate companies and their behavior; it's the job of the government in a regulated free market, and the common people elect the government.

ddtaylor• 4 months ago

It's available on libgen as well.

To anyone salty about that, free advertising cuts both ways. I support their work and it would appear that their goal is to spread the ideas and messages, as it should be with all publishing.

robrain• 4 months ago

Bought it on Kobo the day of the initial ban, mostly as a screw-you and reaction to corporate censorship. The fact that it's a good book and tells an interesting story in a clear manner was a side-benefit. Strongly recommend.

rectang3• 4 months ago

I've just bought my copy.

Best-sellers don't sell that many copies in the absolute sense. From what I can tell Careless People has sold around 200,000. Moving the needle just a bit is worth it.

KaiserPro• 4 months ago

Its an entertaining read, much more gripping than I was expecting. I assumed it would just be a dirt dishing exercise, combined with self aggrandising horse shit (ie Frances Haugen)

But actually its a good story.

One thing to note, all meta employees who are "let go" with any kind of severance has the same clause. They are all basically given a bunch of cash and told "we'll recover this as a debt if you bad mouth us"

Which goes against the "freedom of expression" shit the Zuck espouses.

_heimdall2• 4 months ago

Just be aware that the author really doesn't get much of the money you're spending. The publisher takes a sizable chunk, as does Amazon if you ordered from there.

itsdesmond• 4 months ago

The fuck are you arguing here? Should they not buy the book?

whynotminot4• 4 months ago

Bought and read the book and honestly the author is just as crazy as the rest of the executive team she skewers. I’m not too broken up that she didn’t get more money from my purchase.

badgersnake• 4 months ago

Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

Let’s not forget they’re also behind all this age verification BS.

ndesaulniers• 4 months ago

It was a page turner. I recommend it.

chamomeal• 4 months ago

I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws. Your employment agreement can include stuff like “if you say anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us $50,000”.

What in the world?? I guess NDA’s are like that, and used everywhere. Still it just seems wild

Joker_vD• 4 months ago

Ah, don't worry, we have a concept of "onerous clause doctrine" to help with that. Of course, it's almost entirely up to a judge's discretion what is and is not onerous, so...

sbarre• 4 months ago

And you might spend more than $50,000 challenging it in court, because the billion dollar corporation you signed it with would rather spend the money against you than set a precedent everyone else could use against them in the future.

malfist3• 4 months ago

Well this is locked away in arbitration, so it'll never see a judge. Just the shadow court system owned and operated by the Epstein class. Because the existing system wasn't biased enough towards moneyed interests

kubb• 4 months ago

Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.

SauntSolaire12• 4 months ago

There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.

groundzeros20154• 4 months ago

Freedom of speech is that you are allowed to express any viewpoint, not make any sounds with your mouth or disclose any information.

0x3f22• 4 months ago

I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws.

What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to thing.

browningstreet• 4 months ago

And yet it’s not even that simple. Contracts can be invalidated.

Other countries have fairness doctrines with allow/disallow lists of things that can be included in contracts.

There are other ways.

TrackerFF• 4 months ago

Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

Some contracts are illegal, and purely made to intimidate the other party - and completely rests on the fact that said other party will never challenge or even check if the contract is valid in the first place. Hence why so many of these contracts also have arbitration clauses which stipulate that the parties must resolve through private arbitration.

Any time someone has the balls to challenge these things is also a win for the working man.

nativeit2• 4 months ago

Human Cent-iPad style?

idop• 4 months ago

Except that a well functioning society that expects its laws to be respected cannot allow the law to be circumvented by commercial agreements.

If a country passes a law that guarantees all its citizens the right to free speech, and now a company forces (!) a citizen to sign a contract saying they waive that right in order to receive the compensation they're entitled to anyway, why should the country accept that? Why should that person lose their right to free speech? Did the country give the company the authority to cancel its own laws at will?

It's the same with companies forcing candidates to sign non-compete agreements in order to be hired, if and when the company fires them. If you're a lawyer, and your employer fires you, what do you do? Work as a cashier for 3 years until the NCC expires? Change your career?

No company should have the authority to make the illegal legal (or vice-versa), and no country should accept its own citizens giving away their rights to some for-profit company. That's mafia shit: "If you excercise your right to free speech to expose our crimes, we will withhold the money we owe you and ruin your life in court".

Sign me up!!

jeffbee5• 4 months ago

It's a condition of the severance payment. She didn't need to sign it. She wanted the money. Then she violated the terms of the contract.

ghostpepper• 4 months ago

I'm not a lawyer but even if it was, eg. a year's salary at the time she accepted it, is that really a fair price for a lifetime of silence?

fmajid3• 4 months ago

NDAs cannot cover whistleblowing of actual criminality, including sexual harassment, which is why modern NDAs take pains to disclaim that, so they wouldn't be invalidated on that basis. Presumably the behavior exposed in the book, while arguably immoral or amoral, doesn't rise to the standard of criminality.

torton• 4 months ago

I think people living outside the US don't realize how few disputes here are actually allowed to use the official legal system when dealing with companies of non-trivial size. Many employment contracts, many service contracts, and even website terms of use require mandatory arbitration in lieu of pursuing one's claims in court.

And arbitrator companies (some of which are explicitly for-profit) know the hand that feeds them.

Aurornis2• 4 months ago

Your employment agreement can include stuff like “if you say anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us $50,000”.

Non-disparagement clauses are limited by the law, which in the United States is augmented by state-level restrictions. There have been some recent developments from the NRLB limiting how severance agreements can be attached to non-disparagement clauses, too.

So it's not generally true that you can be liable for $50K for saying anything bad about your employer in your own home.

The situation with this author is on the other end of "in your own home" spectrum: They went out and wrote a whole book against their employer that violates NDAs, too. Regardless of what you think about Meta or the author, this was clearly a calculated move on their part to draw out a lawsuit because it provides further press coverage and therefore book sales (just look at all the comments in this thread from people claiming they're motivated to go buy it it now). Whether the gamble pays off or not remains to be seen.

renewiltord2• 4 months ago

Huh, I didn't think of that. If you are aware of the Streisand Effect, it is only logical to use it to your own advantage. Just like Cunningham's Law, you can often get the right answer by posting the wrong one. In fact, this is probably the first time someone is knowingly using the Streisand Effect to their own advantage. There are no prior examples.

amtamt2• 4 months ago

Overall this feels a good thing for public, even if the author is money oriented, because this will hopefully make even more details public.

I personally have no qualms about one criminal extorted by another, specially if their fued is making world better for everyone.

ceejayoz24• 4 months ago

The ruling, awarded without proper notice by an emergency arbitrator (a non-court mediator that is part of the American Arbitration Association), actually said nothing about the truth or otherwise of Sarah’s devastating claims in her book. It made no mention of defamation. Instead, it relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her.

It's well past time to rein in arbitration.

It really should be treated like small claims court; only permissible up to a point. Once it's high-stakes enough, real courts should be in play.

Invictus0• 4 months ago

she agreed to it to get a severance payment

ceejayoz24• 4 months ago

That should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such an agreement heavily limited.

ppseafield• 4 months ago

She had serious debilitating medical issues from pregnancy where she lost a ton of blood and was in a coma for several days and nearly died. Of course she's going to take her severance to help care for her family given the atrocious state of our healthcare system.

indymike• 4 months ago

I hate seeing this down-voted. It is such an important warning to people here. Severance agreements are pretty strong. Also, be very careful of snap settlement offers.

So many of the greatest tragedies I've seen inflicted on people come from accepting an expedient way to get what is really a small amount of money quickly. So often the drive is paying the rent/mortgage or fear of losing health benefits. If you are in a bad situation and offered a settlement and you really feel like something isn't right please talk to an employment lawyer. Most US States have expedited processes for quickly resolving these cases, and the lawyer can help you a lot when you feel like your only choice is to take the severance.

pants2• 4 months ago

So what happens if the author ignores this judgement? Surely arbitration can't send someone to prison. According to the web they still need a court to even confirm a monetary penalty.

ceejayoz24• 4 months ago

Per the article:

"facing fines of $50,000 for every statement that could be seen to be “negative or otherwise detrimental” to Meta"

According to the web they still need a court to even confirm a monetary penalty.

No, not necessarily with arbitration. The judgement itself may need to be confirmed in some states; it likely already has.

ethin2• 4 months ago

Honestly, I would be all for outright abolishing arbitration. I have yet to see anything actually good come out of arbitration other than a ruling that protects the entity that forced arbitration in the first place.

asgraham• 4 months ago

The good is hidden: court systems are already overwhelmed. If the arbitration cases were added, then it’d take even longer to get a court date.

(Which isn’t to say I think the system as it is is good, just that there is a good)

avidiax2• 4 months ago

Arbitration does help with the problem of overwhelmed and expensive courts. What is needed is fair arbitration.

The outcome should approximate the outcome of the full court proceeding.

Make the arbitration rulings appealable in court on the basis of factual errors, errors of law, corruption, and potential errors by omission (i.e. failure of discovery). And make the company responsible for the full costs of the litigation if the arbiter's judgement is overturned. And punish the arbiter, perhaps a 2 year ban on accepting any case from that industry.

I'm sure more adjustments would be needed, but it should be possible to get both the arbiters and the companies to want arbitration to be a faster, cheaper route to the same outcome as the courts, rather than a steamroller that avoids all accountability for the company.

vr46• 4 months ago

Public interest argument is strong here

grokcodec• 4 months ago

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

jauntywundrkind• 4 months ago

Much easier to do when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world. The cloud companies ability to not share the experience of those using the service, to be remote, is a much greater retreat than what was possible 101 years ago, it feels like.

simpaticoder2• 4 months ago

I hear lots of talk about concentration of power, but too little about its amplification. It was a quieter world before amplifiers, both literally and figuratively.

normie3000• 4 months ago

when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world

That sure is an impressive ping!

ryandrake6• 4 months ago

The leadership team of Meta (and all other giant mega corps) are much more isolated from the real world than 40ms and a firewall. These people don't interact in any way with normal people. They live in a different world than us, and don't even think about us, let alone wonder if their actions are hurting us. Do you think Zucc does his own shopping and has to interact with store employees? Do you think he talks to any of the staff of plumbers, electricians, HVAC repair people, gardeners, who maintain his homes? Do you think he flies commercial and sits next to randos in business class? Do you think he goes down to the DMV and stands in line to renew his driver's license? These guys have staff in their orbit who arrange for all these things to just magically happen, so royalty doesn't have to come into direct contact with the commoners. The billionaire class is thoroughly insulated from us through multiple layers of staff and staff of staff.

ehutch79• 4 months ago

If my high school English is worth anything, that quote has nothing to do with being careless, or the privileges accorded to wealth, but is in fact a metaphor for the external struggle of chicken farmers against predators.

surprisetalk• 4 months ago

This book was SO GOOD.

It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel how much harm they've caused.

0x3f22• 4 months ago

I'm not sure these are functionally any different. Perhaps not caring is required to achieve certain goals.

truegoric• 4 months ago

Why injustice being a zero-sum game would make it easier to bear?

simpaticoder2• 4 months ago

Because at least someone benefits. It's why theft is arguably better than vandalism. If you steal the thing, at least someone gets to use it. If it's vandalized, no-one does.

malfist3• 4 months ago

Not op but because there's a reason for injustice. It's not just chaos for choas's sake

analog83742• 4 months ago

Understanding takes effort too, effort that might be better spent creating value.

Also, understanding creates culpability. So that's a downside. It's like people who walk in front of you on the road and pretend to not notice you. If I don't see the badness then I am not responsible for the badness.

And thirdly, never underestimate people's power to ignore.

rectang3• 4 months ago

never underestimate people's power to ignore.

One of the hardest things to do is to put yourself in the place of those you see as villains and recognize that they generally see themselves as heroes. The human capacity for self-justification is extremely powerful.

Aurornis2• 4 months ago

This book was SO GOOD.

One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it.

So while reading it, be careful about who you hold up as a hero. In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be untrustworthy narrators.

zaphar3• 4 months ago

There is nuance here though. Taking a step back and learning from an experience is something to be celebrated.

jmull3• 4 months ago

A strange response.

Rather than address the comment you change the subject, “whaddabout the author!”

Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of “Meta”?

(lol, that name gets me every time. Might as well have renamed themselves NoIdeaWhatToDoNow)

ryandrake6• 4 months ago

The fact that she did end up setting herself apart is what's remarkable. For every one of her who was able to self-reflect, become horrified of the ethics of what she was doing, and took the hard steps of stopping and breaking away, how many current and former Meta employees don't do this reflection and remain contributors to the problem? 1:100? 1:1,000? 1:10,000?

jancsika• 4 months ago

You read the book. Did she have the receipts or not?

mykowebhn• 4 months ago

To all future whistle-blowers: Please ignore comments like this one! What you are doing is a valuable service to society.

b00ty4breakfast2• 4 months ago

I haven't read the book, but I don't think there's anything dishonest about needing distance to see the context of what she was a part of. Now, if she is trying to paint herself as completely outside of that even while she was knee-deep in it, that's a different matter but hindsight isn't something to be dismissed.

matthewdgreen• 4 months ago

If we require every whistleblower to be a saint, then we’ll never hear a whistle. If you have a serious criticism of their credibility, that’s potentially different, but arbitrary criticisms of someone’s moral worth is mostly irrelevant.

julianeon• 4 months ago

We would have no book if the author was a hero: they would say "I'm not doing this," quit, and that would be the end of it. By this definition, only an unheroic person could've written it. By the same definition, an firsthand expose of Meta could never be written by a trustworthy person.

This obviously protects the company: you are ceding this ground to them, "No trustworthy person could work at your company and write an expose." I don't think we should cede that to them.

SilverElfin• 4 months ago

You are probably right that she was part of it all. There what money and power do to you. We need to limit it. The eat the rich stuff is the wrong messaging but the right goal. We need to reduce concentration of wealth and power.

ktimespi• 4 months ago

Yeah, the fact that she realized what's going on and still worked tirelessly to give Mark / Facebook more negotiating power speaks volumes. I also can't buy the whole "I have financial woes and can't escape" spin that she puts on her situation.

Otherwise, great book.

popalchemist• 4 months ago

Waking up from a cult doesn't make you a hero, but stopping the cult might.

j45• 4 months ago

Sometimes you can still learn from a story.

Humans are about making mistakes and learning from them, not hiding behind the disease of perfectionism.

If there's something the author needs to say, I'm sure they are capable of using their words.

The other side that could have happened so easily is so much silence that there was no book.

jmye4• 4 months ago

I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero

Cool, then don’t do that.

Every single employee at Meta is still vile and making the world a worse place every single day, and anything exposing the depths of their shittiness, no matter the source, is a good thing.

BloondAndDoom5• 4 months ago

In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be untrustworthy narrators.

Even if you take her as trustworthy narrator (which I mostly did) she's stil evil in this story up until the publishing book.

DavidPiper• 4 months ago

I don't know if anyone is holding the author up as a hero, least of all herself. The book reads as a masterclass in grooming, manipulation and abuse.

If anything, the title "Careless People" does a disservice to its message: the people above and around her clearly knew exactly what they were doing, and took great care to evade any and all responsibility for anything.

gitaarik• 4 months ago

So in this way we should dismiss all whistleblowers?

sifar• 4 months ago

I felt it more being naive idealism in the beginning coupled with the thrill of achieving things before the realization. Yet certain things stand out like her trip to Myanmar. Why to subject oneself through that in that condition.

The title is very apt, the executives, they simply didn't care. That was a fascinating glimpse

toss1• 4 months ago

> its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions.

This, a day or two after a top story about Marc Andreessen refusing to engage in introspection.

Nah, there's not a pattern here among the tech billionaires ... right?

prepend17• 4 months ago

I think the author was complicit and only complained once FB stopped paying her.

It was weird how the author claimed not to know how facebook targeted ads worked until 2016/2017 after she had made millions.

mortoc• 4 months ago

Literally anyone with the access to these people would be someone making bank. Do you think Cheryl Sandberg would bother to talk to a poor person?

That's kinda the nature of whistle-blowing. You're complicit, you have inside knowledge and THEN you choose to do the right thing. Snowden worked for the NSA before he exposed their lies about spying on US citizens, you think he did literally no work towards that end before blowing the whistle?

andy_ppp2• 4 months ago

So you should never be allowed to comment on the behaviour of companies you worked for?

BloondAndDoom5• 4 months ago

Seems to be a common pattern, it's better than the alternative but nonetheless it's not the brag they think it's.

tim3332• 4 months ago

Though if she was complicit she's probably in a good position to expose it now things have changed.

ccppurcell• 4 months ago

So what? If we need unscrupulous people to tell us what other unscrupulous people do, so what?

BloondAndDoom5• 4 months ago

Do you work in or closely follow the tech world?

I read this book thinking that it'll be some expose but honestly it was underwhelming in a sense, it's almost better than I thought. Everything in the book either was obvious for anyone who worked in the industry, or better than I thought it'd be. There were some weird personal things about Zuckerberg, but even those were expected or given.

It was an OK read, however as I read it all I can think of author is just a naive person who didn't know what she was getting into, and remained naive for a long time. Author herself say this in the book couple of times as well.

Maybe this is a book that's "eye opening" to someone who's an outsider but if you are somehow in this business the book is practically nothing burger, or even worse actually make Facebook look better than I actually have imagined they would be.

Another similar book is : "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble", I read it expecting some crazy story, but it was yet another case of an outsider's take of the standard industry practice. I'm sure this is interesting for those never been in these circles, but for everyone else it's just another day in today's tech world. (Just to be clear, I don't support or condone any of this stuff but it's such a common place and given, unfortunately not even interesting at this point).

gfody2• 4 months ago

normalizing toxic as standard industry practice is sort of like condoning it, imo

SauntSolaire12• 4 months ago

A good reminder not to sign contracts with non-disparagement clauses, if you can help it. Seems like good territory for California to ban like they did with non-competes. At the very least they should be restricted from inclusion in severance agreements - at that point the company already has you over a barrel.

RIMR2• 4 months ago

I mean, a reasonable non-disparagement clause for your current employees makes sense. You don't want your employees actively undermining the company in public. If they don't believe in what you're doing, they should be able to quit and say whatever they want. It should end immediately when your employment ends. It should be illegal to make it compulsary for severance packages, as many companies do.

And there need to be serious regulations about how these agreements can be used, and those regulations should protect whistleblowers at all costs. Like a public figure suing for libel/slander/defamation, the burden of proving statements false should rest entirely with the company.

SauntSolaire12• 4 months ago

What's the need for a non-disparagement clause then? If they're a current employee, you have their continued employment as leverage.

jeffbee5• 4 months ago

The clause in question didn't even arise until after employment ended. Again, this person faced no obligation to sign this contract. They wanted the payment, so they signed it.

cmiles742• 4 months ago

I'm not sure we can hold individuals responsible for signing these non-disparagement clauses. They often don't have a lawyer to review the paperwork and, I am sure, employers like Facebook aren't going to wait for a new hire to have a lawyer review that paperwork. There's a real pressure to sign everything with HR and get on to starting your new role.

Plus the power imbalance.

SauntSolaire12• 4 months ago

If you can't hold individuals responsible for signing contracts on the premise that they might not read them, you've simultaneously invalidated most contracts, increased the cost to enter a contract (essentially subsidizing the law industry), and severely limited the ability for individuals to enter into contracts — not to mention infantilizing adults who are fully capable of reading a document before signing it.

Furthermore, this was a severance agreement, not employment agreement, so having a lawyer review your contract is not going to delay you from starting your role.

I have my issues with this situation, but "they might not have read/understood the contract" isn't one of them.

prepend17• 4 months ago

In this case the author is an attorney, so can presumably understand a contract she signed.

And the non-disparagement wasnt in her hire agreement, it was in her severance agreement, in exchange for a negotiated amount of money. Author was wealthy enough to afford dedicated lawyers to review.

renewiltord2• 4 months ago

This is going to be one of those threads with LLM-grade comments about stealing your information and arbitration and this and that but I'm early enough that I can shame all of you first by at least having read the first page of this book so I can tell you that the author has had an interesting life. The book starts with an actual shark attack. It's pretty famous, it's in the news and stuff: https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360667776/sister-hits-bac...

The story is pretty close to this one in TAL: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/476/transcript so many people on reddit speculate it's the same. I never verified or I missed that in the book if it says so.

Then she apparently nearly died again giving birth to one of her children. And then here with the Zuckexposé. I'm reminded that people live all sorts of lives full of detail and story. Great stuff.

lucasay• 4 months ago

non-disparagement clauses doing a lot of heavy lifting here

garethsprice• 4 months ago

Ordered a hard copy of the book, don't trust that an eBook version won't get revoked or edited at some point.

Timely given I just tried to sign into Meta for the first time in a year or two as I am being required to work on a Marketing API integration, got prompted for a video selfie(!) and my account is now in "Community Review" as maybe my expression was too grumpy about being required to present myself for inspection. Abhorrent company.

gortok• 4 months ago

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about.

We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way, but we're perfectly willing to allow fully grown adults to act like this.

Here's just one example, there are plenty more:

Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in her bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'.

Everyone in the orbit of the executive team knew about this behavior, and everyone gave it a pass, even going so far as to defend it and to protect Cheryl. This behavior should be universally deplored, and yet is not.

captainbland• 4 months ago

I think the overtures about things we care about more just provide plausible deniability and that when you dig down, people are more concerned about the risks of challenging the wealthy than they are about such window dressing.

yoyohello13• 4 months ago

By allowing powerful adults to act this way, we are in a sense teaching our children to act this way too.

ElProlactin• 4 months ago

Getting rich has been the American dream for a very long time. Unfortunately, many Americans only pretend to care that it matters how you get rich.

scrubs3• 4 months ago

Well absolutely. Half the times we're tough on kids is in hopes they don't permanently turn into adults their behavior reminds of

And as kids learning from adults (although the subject matter is different) is exemplified in To Kill a Mockingbird.

As of today I am periodically embarrassed to be an American. Periodic in the sense that every once in a while the shameless behavior of elites feels like I ok'd in the presence of foreigners. Today's climate reminds that in our society i guess as always the suck-ups, butt kisserers, and hustle at all costs is alive and well in the top 10% of society.

Relatedly, this is ultimately why European courts went they way of the dodo. Moody kings, palace intrigue, the maneuvering for kinship to power, the gossip, the scandals whilst spending stupid money so aggravated people we quit.

I seriously dislike this current environment. And I can report not everybody is that way. They're still a few classy lads and ladies out there... but gosh the players are no longer afraid of sunlight at the same time

Noaidi3• 4 months ago

Yes, all of this happens (and worse!) and still no boycott of Facebook. We have been turned into a country of dopamine deficient addicts.

And now these same companies are funding a useless war, killing innocent children, and soon, collapsing the world economy.

If you still use these platforms knowing what we know now you are just as complicit as every executive.

https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/

nubinetwork• 4 months ago

Hard to boycott something you quit using 10 years ago.

breve• 4 months ago

Facebook is an addiction for many people. Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook users are "dumb fucks":

https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

shmichael• 4 months ago

On the other side of every "useless war" is the what if question. Killing Hitler before WWII would have been seen as a cruel interference with German sovereignty.

Anyway it would be wise not to tie social network corporate affairs to the war. The two are not linked in a more significant way than a social network in general being linked to such affairs as a media.

johnnyanmac6• 4 months ago

I haven't logged onto Facebook in some 6 years now, so I can't really do much more to boycott them.

That's the big issue of the post truth era. I imagine the number of people "using these platforms despite what we know" is minuscule. Most will never hear of this, and many who do know have probably left long before this for the other dozens of crimes against humanity Meta's performed.

Of the rest of this list. Youtube Premium is the only thing I'm still subscribed too. I actively unsubbed from Prime and am setting up to unsub from Google One.

Mezzie4• 4 months ago

We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way, but we're perfectly willing to allow fully grown adults to act like this.

Speak to a group of K-12 teachers.

We (as a society/culture) are absolutely giving our children passes and teaching them to act this way.

II2II2• 4 months ago

Speak to a group of K-12 teachers.
We (as a society/culture) are absolutely giving our children passes and teaching them to act this way.

That depends upon where you teach. I've worked in schools where families who would put up with that type of behaviour were an anomaly. The school sends the same message.

Of course, one can argue that society is sending conflicting messages. Yet then my question would be: are those messages coming from people who are truly reflective of society? Those messages are certainly coming from the loudest voices, voices that are (more often than not) controlled by a few organizations that seem to have a moral compass that points towards the profit of the organization rather than social welfare. Even then I have to wonder whether the views of the organization reflect the views of the people it is composed of.

prepend17• 4 months ago

I think that was more about trying, in a dumb way, to make the pregnant woman not work all night than sexual harassment.

The author was 8 months pregnant and was going to stay up for 12 hours doing stuff. This seemed more like a commanding boss trying to stop a workaholic from working.

ndsipa_pomu• 4 months ago

Demanding that she sleep next to her on her bed does not sound like trying to stop a workaholic from working. It sounds creepy as hell.

bostik• 4 months ago

Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in her bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'.

Considering the timing... does that mean MeToo doesn't apply if the predator is also a woman?

Sexual advances from a position of power are simply not okay. (Weirdly as a society we appear to have accepted that an older woman predating younger men is somehow a cool thing: we call them cougars.)

miltonlost• 4 months ago

Age gaps in relationships is not inherently negative. Being a cougar is not a bad thing. The issue here was that Sandberg was the author's manager. Age isn't an issue when all parties are adults.

JuniperMesos3• 4 months ago

It's a cool thing if you're the younger man getting sexual attention from a hot older woman. Declaring by fiat that this is not okay doesn't change what peoples' desires actually are, or what behavior done by other people they feel compelled to punish.

liendolucas2• 4 months ago

What it would be terrific is that people that have access to Sheryl Sandberg in public repeteadly ask her: "Do you still invite your employees to sleep on your private jet's bed?" as reminder about how fucked up her mind and demands are.

Same should be applied to the other nasty members of Zuck's inner past/present circle.

My inner guts tell me that all these freaks just try out these out of place demands to see if people without their money and power would actually knee and say "yes" to every request that comes out of their mouth.

astura• 4 months ago

We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way

Where do you live where this is the case? I'd love to move there!

svnt2• 4 months ago

The job of execs/middle managers seems to often be dual parenting: 1) coordinate the capable well-parented employees below them, and 2) pander to the usefully myopic spoiled brats above.

groundzeros20154• 4 months ago

I would personally met the most spoiled brats dealing with big tech employees.

mohamedkoubaa• 4 months ago

Sandberg is famously not known for her ethics

hn_throwaway_993• 4 months ago

It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about.

This encapsulates the entire moral bankruptcy of "the Epstein class" so perfectly. I highly recommend reading the series about the Epstein class by Anand Giridharadas (Giridharadas didn't actually coin the term "Epstein class", apparently that was Ro Khanna, but he really was the first to popularize and clearly define it).

themafia• 4 months ago

It says we're willing

That's not at all what it says. No one is "willing" to have this. The fact that this outcome exists is not a demonstration of this fact.

What it demonstrates is that the administrative enforcement system is broken. It simply does not work when capital exceeds an uncertain threshold or when the utility to the intelligence agencies is deemed to be of national importance.

It also demonstrates that our legislative system is entirely captured. It could fix this with a pen stroke. The people would loudly and eagerly support this. Yet no one has put pen to paper? Something deeper is clearly wrong here.

Blaming the public for being victims of this regime is insane.

strulovich• 4 months ago

That chapter struck me as paranoia and hit piece.

What really happens there, if you ignore the author’s spin on it and concentrate on the facts is Sheryl is repeatedly asking her pregnant employee to please come stay in the big bed in the private jet and rest.

Then author has good points, such as Sheryl not taking into account she’s expecting ready deliverables. But she also spins it as if something sexual might happen there, or that Sheryl saying “you should have slept in the bed” in the end of the flight is a mafioso threat - and literally suggesting that Sheryl stopped trusting her because she didn’t take that offer.

(Worked at Meta for many years, not directly with Sheryl, and I am generally a fan of her, I think the book distorts at multiple times the messages she said)

lixtra3• 4 months ago

HN guidelines say: Assume good faith. We should apply it to Sheryl here as well.

In Europe several of my acquaintances shared a bed with their professors/superior for various non-sexual reasons. It’s also a cultural thing.

lokar3• 4 months ago

I read it differently.

I agree the basic offer was probably sincerely from kindness. What seems creepy is her continued insistence, her inability to relate to the human in front of her.

I suspect she is just not used to anyone acting genuine towards her, let alone contradicting her. She always gets what she wants, even when it’s a whim.

PunchyHamster• 4 months ago

It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about.

Nah, the "pass" only exists because we're not allowed by govt to shoot at billionaires

zoklet-enjoyer• 4 months ago

It's great that she spoke out, but she was complicit in all of this too.

https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-fac...

fwipsy2• 4 months ago

The theme of the book is "power corrupts." Wynn-Williams is not an exception. Sometimes she acknowledges it, sometimes she glosses over it, but the way the job compromised her own morality is one of the most fascinating parts of the book.

I am not sure I would have done better in her place. When it's your livelihood (or your friends,) it's so much easier to just fall in line. If she'd gotten along personally with the other execs, the book wouldn't even exist.

petcat• 4 months ago

My understanding is that as part of a severance package she received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement" clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company. The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by the contract she signed.

It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list. But it also sounds like she agreed to this in exchange for a lump-sum severance payment, and then broke the contract anyway. I'm not sure if this is really that principled of a thing. She sought-out and accepted a lot of money for this agreement.

RIMR2• 4 months ago

It should not be legal to enforce this kind of thing 9 years after a person leaves your company. I get that it currently is legal, but have some principles. Just because this is legal doesn't mean it isn't morally reprehensible, and its legality should be challenged.

jeffbee5• 4 months ago

That's a ridiculous constraint to put on the freedom to enter into contracts.

seneca• 4 months ago

Why would it not be legal to enforce a contract after 9 years? If she didn't want it enforced after a duration, she could have negotiated for that, or just not signed it.

I don't see how it's principled to legally swear to not do something, then turn around and do it anyways. She's an adult, she has agency, and she chose to enter that contract.

It's also not like we're talking about a legal whistleblower here. That act DOES (and should) have a lot of legal protections. This is someone writing a book that they personally profit from.

pwdisswordfishy• 4 months ago

It should not be legal to enforce full stop. If you don't want to be disparaged, make your conduct worthy of not being disparaged. When you're being lied about, sue for defamation; "non-disparagement clauses" are redundant at best, an attack on free speech at worst.

prepend17• 4 months ago

She didn’t have to agree to the contract. I don’t really want some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties can do with each other.

beepbooptheory2• 4 months ago

If I am understanding correctly wouldn't that make it a more principled "thing" on her end? Like if you know they're gonna have a good case against you and still blow the whistle anyway, isn't that acting through some kind of principle, versus, at least, acting out when you feel you will be protected?

jamiequint2• 4 months ago

No, principled would be refusing to sign the exit agreement and forefeiting the money, then writing the book.

ipython5• 4 months ago

These tools, quite frankly, are simply mechanisms for the already rich and powerful to cement their position and sweep any misdeeds under the rug.

While I agree that you are technically correct, I also think we will look back on this period with disgust just as we did when we considered women unworthy of franchise.

maximinus_thrax4• 4 months ago

"non-disparagement" clause

Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

BeetleB4• 4 months ago

I doubt such clauses can prevent you from disclosing them to relevant authorities. Disclosing them to the public is a whole other matter.

mikkupikku5• 4 months ago

I don't think such clauses have ever been held to prevent people from testifying in criminal trials. Signing book deals on the other hand...

If it's true that she signed a severance deal, e.g. signed this when she was leaving and therefore already knew she was agreeing to protect a bunch of snakes.. Well she fucked up. At the point when she signed that agreement she was already informed and aware of what kind of people she was agreeing to not disparage.

raincole• 4 months ago

At the end the book is published.

charcircuit2• 4 months ago

I do. Illegal activities can be dealt with by the legal system without needing to be publicized first.

prepend17• 4 months ago

In the US, a contract can’t supersede laws like those that protect whistleblowers. (I think this is part of how Harvey Weinstein was prosecuted because his NDAs were found invalid)

The author didnt disclose any illegal activities in her book. And she didnt claim whistleblower status.

troyvit• 4 months ago

The article covers this:

Instead, [the arbitration ruling] relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her. Which it did, from March 13, 2025, her publication day. We could still publish the book, but our author could not talk about it.

So she followed the clause.

Personally I don't care. If she can publish the ugly truth about Meta and snag a pile of their money in the process I say power to her.

MikePlacid• 4 months ago

to silence her.

That’s a lie. That’s not silencing. That’s taking back some money if she speaks.

I know a guy who is sentenced to 15 years in jail for posting a YouTube video about the Ukrainian government. That’s silencing.

reenorap• 4 months ago

Can't she just return the money from the severance agreement and rescind the NDA?

collinmcnulty• 4 months ago

That's not how NDA's work. They would be useless even for legitimate purposes if they worked that way.

phendrenad2• 4 months ago

It's not that deep lil bro. Yes, she broke her non-disparagement, but the good outweighs the bad here.

wkat4242• 4 months ago

https://archive.is/DmiOw

fwipsy2• 4 months ago

How the hell did Zuck run Facebook for so long without learning about the Streisand effect?

ceejayoz24• 4 months ago

The Streisand effect has a bit of confirmation bias at play.

For every case of "idiot billionaire tries to suppress story and fails" I suspect there are quite a few "billionaire successfully suppresses story" cases.

hsuduebc2• 4 months ago

Because he simply doesn't have to. He is controlling comically evil ad machine which is always caught redhanded doing something deeply immoral and nothing ever happens for them apart fine from EU from time to time. He is not even trying to have some positive image. He doesn't have to.

liendolucas2• 4 months ago

The book is so good that once picked up you can't stop reading it. I've left Facebook many many many years ago and ever came back. The book just reinforced my aversion to any product that's out there that is designed to waste your time and manipulate your head. I sincerely hope that whoever ruled the gag on the author reverses the decision and at least reads the book and understands how nasty and evil Facebook is.

zeroonetwothree11• 4 months ago

I too love to read books that reinforce my existing beliefs. Although I’m starting to think it’s less educational than the opposite :)

blitzar• 4 months ago

Across America, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

AugustoCAS• 4 months ago

This is common across all corporations. My go-to example is Unilever or Nestle pushing products that are 100% unhealthy.

In Asia, it's not uncommon to see healthy drinks for children that are sugar+artificial flavouring with huge marketing campaigns targetting the parents . The corporation makes millions and then advertises how they donated $10k to an obesity charity.

mil222• 4 months ago

Yes. Even companies like Google have had plenty of scandals involving senior leadership. I've personally heard more than a few that are not public from people with direct knowledge. The difference is that some companies and executives are simply better at containing the fallout, suppressing what gets out, or cultivating such a polished public image that allegations seem implausible because they clash so sharply with the persona they project.

If you're considering working for a billionaire, choose carefully whose fortune and influence you're helping expand. Caveat emptor applies to employees as well. Or even better, don't work for one at all.

Fricken• 4 months ago

Careless indeed. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are complicit in the Rohingya genocide

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

williamDafoe• 4 months ago

These non disparagement contracts are typical in silicon valley. Databricks offered me a tiny amount of money and expected me to sign when they fired me on a whim after my stock grant quadrupled in 9 months. There was no warning and no review, just fired. They fired my 2 managers within the year, too, probably because they were fools.

I told them to fuck off. I should have continued with the lawsuit, probably.

But in american courts its "heads i win tails you lose" with labor laws - according to my lawyer wins are in the low single digits for discrimination lawsuits.

beloch• 4 months ago

"Haigh highlighted Wynn-Williams’s case in the House of Commons during a debate about employment rights on Monday. She said Wynn-Williams’s decision to speak out had plunged her into financial peril.

“Despite previous public statements that Meta no longer uses NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] in cases of sexual harassment – which Sarah has repeatedly alleged – she is being pushed to financial ruin through the arbitration system in the UK, as Meta seeks to silence and punish her for speaking out,” she said.

“Meta has served a gagging order on Sarah and is attempting to fine her $50,000 for every breach of that order. She is on the verge of bankruptcy. I am sure that the whole house and the government will stand with Sarah as we pass this legislation to ensure that whistleblowers and those with the moral courage to speak out are always protected.”

It is understood that the $50,000 figure represents the damages Wynn-Williams has to pay for material breaches of the separation agreement she signed when she left Meta in 2017. Meta has emphasised that Wynn-Williams entered into the non-disparagement agreement voluntarily as part of her departure."

...

"The ruling stated Wynn-Williams should stop promoting the book and, to the extent she could, stop further publication. It did not order any action by Pan Macmillan."

Source:[1]

----------------------------------

This would probably boil down to a "He said, she said" type of situation, albeit with one side being aggressively litigious, were it not for Facebook's long track record of casual and unthinking irresponsibility. e.g. Myanmar[2]. Second, the non-disparagement clause was apparently foisted upon Wynn-Williams when she was leaving the company, not when she was hired. That suggests Meta knew they'd treated her poorly and feared consequences. Finally, the book that resulted has come out at a time when multiple countries are starting to pass legislation to control the harm Facebook and other social media companies do (e.g. The social media ban for minors in Australia). Meta clearly does not want a book like "Careless People" trending right now.

Meta has both a history of bad behaviour and a strong motive to silence such a book. For these reasons, I'm disinclined to believe Meta's claims that these allegations are "false and defamatory". Wynn-Williams probably was "toxic". She was an executive at Meta after all. Her claims can be true at the same time.

________________________

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expo...

[2]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

mil222• 4 months ago

It's a great read. Here are some of the most salacious bits.

---

She details the bizarrely intimate demands former COO Sheryl Sandberg placed on her young, female assistants - including demanding the author get into bed with her on a private jet:

"Sheryl recently instructed Sadie to buy lingerie for both of them with no budget, and Sadie obeyed, spending over $10,000 on lingerie for Sheryl and $3,000 on herself. ... 'Happy to treat your breasts as they should be treated,' Sheryl responds. ... Sheryl responds by asking her twenty-six-year-old assistant to come to her house to try on the underwear and have dinner. Later the invite becomes one to stay over. Lean in and lie back."

---

Facing open arrest warrants from the South Korean government over a regulatory dispute, Facebook's leadership team (including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg) realize it is too legally dangerous for them to travel there. So VP of Communications Elliot Schrage proposes a sociopathic solution:

"It’s breathtaking to me, how casually leadership speaks of employees being jailed. As if it’s a fact of life like taxes...

'We need to get someone to test the appetite of the Korean authorities for arresting someone from headquarters. It can’t be someone located there. They need to fly in before Mark and Sheryl do. You know, a body,' Elliot states matter-of-factly. The room falls silent. It’s a weird thing to realize that the tech world, this most modern of industries, has cannon fodder."

---

A woman suffers a severe medical emergency in the middle of the open-plan office while everyone just keeps typing:

"She’s foaming at the mouth and her face is bleeding. She must’ve hit something when she fell from her desk. And she’s being completely ignored. She’s surrounded by desks and people at computers and no one’s helping her. Everyone types busily on their keyboards, pretending nothing is happening.

'Are you her manager?' I ask a woman at a nearby desk who seems to be studiously concentrating on her computer, while a woman convulses in pain at her feet. 'Yes. But I’m very busy,' she says brusquely. ... 'She’s a contractor. I don’t have that sort of information. Her contract’s coming to an end soon. I suggest you call HR.'"

---

She uncovers secret internal documents detailing Mark Zuckerberg's master plan to get Facebook into China:

"But the thing that gets me is where Facebook’s leadership states that one of the 'cons' of Facebook being the one who’s accountable for content moderation is this: 'Facebook employees will be responsible for user data responses that could lead to death, torture and incarceration.'

... And yet, despite the fact that our employees would be responsible for death, torture, and incarceration... the consensus among Mark and the Facebook leaders was that this was what they’d prefer..."

rorylawless• 4 months ago

A couple of podcasts in my rotation had Sarah Wynn-Williams on as a guest [1] [2], with the caveat that she was unable to talk about the book or comment on the Meta. Absurd.

I need to give this a read soon.

[1] https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/live-special%3A-who-rules-...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mz5f

thisisrida• 4 months ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20260222004907/https://www.theti...

ChrisMarshallNY2• 4 months ago

Ms. Streisand. Paging Ms. Barbra Streisand. Please pick up the white courtesy phone.

I am not sure which exec at meta thought that this would be a good idea.

They are, literally, giving the book the best publicity it could have ever had. She's probably happy to not talk about it. There will be plenty of proxies that only have to read out of the book, prefacing it with "This is what Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want you to hear."

dmschulman2• 4 months ago

It's been interesting to watch some of Wynn-William's claims be vindicated by recent court decisions about the addictive and manipulative qualities of Meta and Google's products. She left the company in 2017, and along with her many other allegations about Facebook and their executive team, had a good amount of information in the book about the reasoning, rationale, and management decisions that led to allowing advertisers to hyper target "coveted" demographics of tweens and children (among other claims).

Facebook, according to Wynn-Williams, sold advertisers on the fact that they could target young girls who post and then remove selfies from their services in order to market to demographics who were likely experiencing depression and negative feelings about their body image.

bena5• 4 months ago

She didn’t leave, she was fired. A significant difference.

sillyfluke• 4 months ago

If your first priority is judging the author then yes. If your first priority is judging the company, as it is with many people in this thread, then it is less so. In that case, it only suffices to ascertain the truth of the author's statements.

To take a more extreme example, if a mob hitman turned FBI informant blows the lid on the corruption within the FBI, if there is truth in their statements, then them having benefitted from the corruption they are exposing is frankly secondary to my primary focus in the matter.

dmschulman2• 4 months ago

Hey now, I'm still reading the booK!

paganel• 4 months ago

girls who post and then remove selfies from their services in order to market to demographics who were likely experiencing depression and negative feelings about their body image.

This is just pure evil, and I'm not using this as a metaphor, it is evil by definition. I wonder how do the people behind these decisions sleep at night? Don't they have kids of their own? How can they look at their kids' faces knowing that they've deliberately caused harm to some other kids?

khalic• 4 months ago

Well I know what I’m reading tonight.

bicepjai• 4 months ago

Streisand effect. I didn’t care about the book but I will have listened to this book by this weekend.

b00ty4breakfast2• 4 months ago

Are we shocked that a private entity, when given control of the public square, is using it's position to manipulate the discourse that goes in it's square? You think the quadspillion dollar megacorp is just going to let you criticize them?

The naivety in tech is downright embarrassing sometimes. This isn't the 90s or even the 2010s, we should know the lay of the land by now

smallerize• 4 months ago

No one said they were surprised. It's good to get documentation.

newscracker• 4 months ago

But when readers realised that Meta was trying to suppress it, the book became a global phenomenon. To date we’ve sold almost 200,000 copies.

The number of copies sold seems quite low for this book. It’s difficult to believe that across paperback, hardcover, ebooks and audiobooks, it hasn’t sold several million copies. This report is from February 2026 (just a month and a half ago).

brcmthrowaway• 4 months ago

How great it is to write an expose after already making millions there...

CalChris2• 4 months ago

Well, $50,000 is just not that much money. Sarah Wynn-Williams could open a Patreon account; scrape together $50,000; do an interview and cut Zuck a check.

david_allison• 4 months ago

It's $50,000 per statement

shevy-java• 4 months ago

There need to be new laws against megacorporations. They undermine too much in society when they can abuse individuals so easily. This is also a problem when the world wide web becomes a global walled garden - corporations decide who can say which (and gets exposure, or by censoring, no exposure). This is also why "age verification" is a censorship law (and, by the way, I recently saw on youtube two young girls create content, in a random video suggested; this was interesting in that age verification kind of censors away under-age people as content creators. The content itself was absolutely harmless, some random shit about what young people seem to be interested in. But I then wondered how the lobbyists can still try to sell "age verification" as "must-protect-kids" when at the same time underage people can create videos. This just confirms all suspiciouns that "age verification" has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children, but with spying and snifing after regular people.)

next_xibalba• 4 months ago

I'll not that she is "banned" from saying negative things about Meta not by any law, but by a contract she willingly signed, and for which she likely received financial compensation (aka "severance"). I'd like to know the amount she was paid in severance (or really, was it above and beyond the standard severance policy at the time), in addition the amount of the fines she faces for disparagement that are reported here.

That said, Meta seems to have a really stupid strategy here. They are only drawing more attention to this woman and her book, and making themselves looking really bad in the process. I'm not sure I believe her victim narrative, but Meta sure does look dumb and vindictive here.

tyronehed• 4 months ago

This is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading. She was extremely fair to Facebook executives.

threethirtytwo• 4 months ago

Wait you can legally ban someone from saying negative things? How does this work with the first amendment?

delbronski• 4 months ago

Money. You can break any rule with money.

thyrsus• 4 months ago

The first amendment protects from U.S. government censorship (with exceptions for national security and commission of otherwise illegal acts, such as child molestation, fraud, or yelling fire in a crowded theater). The suppression here is a civil matter in which the author signed a contract not to "disparage" and would suffer civil penalties (monetary, other negotiated constraints) for violating the contract.

dang• 4 months ago

Related. Others? (pretty sure there are others)

Meta exposé author faces $50k fine per breach of non-disparagement agreement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322050 - Sept 2025 (352 comments)

An ex-Facebook exec said staff let Zuckerberg win at board games - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44757228 - Aug 2025 (2 comments)

Careless People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43780363 - April 2025 (537 comments)

Lawmakers are skeptical of Zuckerberg's commitment to free speech - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43643387 - April 2025 (63 comments)

How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43440449 - March 2025 (41 comments)

Meta puts stop on promotion of tell-all book by former employee - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43387325 - March 2025 (88 comments)

Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43360024 - March 2025 (336 comments)

Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her book about Facebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473 - March 2025 (108 comments)

zeroonetwothree11• 4 months ago

She’s not actually “banned”, she just has to pay a penalty based on an agreement she voluntarily signed. Now I’m not saying that good on Meta’s part but the title is misleading.

orochimaaru2• 4 months ago

I don't agree with this ban. I also don't understand how a non-judicial US arbitration applies to the UK or in Europe. It shouldn't.

From the book authors perspective, signing the severance (and by definition taking the payout) means you're giving up the rights of disparagement and legal action against the company. This happens a lot of times. For example, if you have a legal employment complaints against your supervisors in a US company and have filed for external legal action, signing severance (if the company lays you off) means you give up your legal action and agree not to disparage company leaders.

The solution here was to not sign the severance and write the book.

Fwiw - I believe severance should be like non-competes. It cannot come with these clauses unless the value of the severance is over some set amount (e.g. above $10m).

I think the publisher should just make the book freely downloadable and distribute it via torrents and any other means.

Cider9986• 4 months ago

100%. I was just about to post about how DRM-free copies should be made available. The danger for most media is obscurity. Although that is clearly not a problem with this one, doing so would only increase the popularity of the book, which should be the author's goal.

zeroonetwothree11• 4 months ago

You don’t think private contracts should be enforceable in other countries? I don’t that would make for a great world to live in.

orochimaaru2• 4 months ago

The contract should be subservient to the laws of the country/state. She may have signed it in the US. But if the non-disparagement is not legal in the UK it shouldn't be enforceable.

prepend17• 4 months ago

I dont think the severance value was disclosed. It could be $10M. She was a senior exec for years and hasnt had to work since leaving Facebook.

I mean even for small amounts like $100k, I’d likely sign non disparagement agreements. Early in my career I signed agreements for really low amounts as it was greater than zero and I needed the money.

ronsor• 4 months ago

I don't agree with this ban. I also don't understand how a non-judicial US arbitration applies to the UK or in Europe. It shouldn't.

You really need to familiarize yourself with the New York Convention.

throwanem2• 4 months ago

She evidently signed a nondisparagement agreement with teeth. She won't martyr herself if she gets sued over it and loses. If she didn't know what she was getting into, that's only because she was too foolish to wield her resources to the minimal extent of hiring a lawyer, for a look over the contract before she signed. Everyone wants a hero here. Don't be a child! This is real life, and if you ask me, Careless People should be subtitled "Exhibit A in the trial of Federal Prisoner BOP #12345-098." Yet here we are.

Wynn-Williams is no one's hero. Nor need she be. Nor should we require she be, in order to make use of the windfall of information she provided. But it's no surprise crime has no consequences, when even we - who have some professional responsibility to expertise in drawing the distinction between uses and abuses of technologies like Meta's - are so unreliable on the basic difference between epistemology and People Magazine. Upton Sinclair really did call it with that old line about understanding and salaries, huh?

Fairburn• 4 months ago

Would be really cool if that book made its way to Youtube. Immortalize it.

tim3332• 4 months ago

Seems fairly immortal already, the book. It's the author who's having problems.

jedberg• 4 months ago

My friends who work at Meta said that they bought 100s of copies of the book and were passing it around to make sure everyone read it.

gnarlouse• 4 months ago

This shark story the book opens with seems... implausibly Hollywood. But alright I guess.

Nevermark• 4 months ago

Can he compliment and celebrate Meta? For the great and awesome harms they do? So efficient! So effective!

And the Senate misdirection! Brazen and bold. Even when they saw right through him, Zuck's stone face hardly slipped!

alex11386• 4 months ago

Yeah so if you need any info on people at Harvard just ask https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122

ordu• 4 months ago

How do these agreements works? Lets suppose she writes a fiction book about a fictional country, and then gives interview about the elites of the country. But by some tragic coincidence the elites are evil just like Meta executives. Could Meta prove in a court, that its executives are exactly as evil as fictional elites and they are evil in exactly the same way, which means Sarah really talked about Meta so she should be fined? Or such reasoning will not work in a court?

alex11386• 4 months ago

I am incredibly saddened by Facebook because "social" should have exploded along with the rest of the web. The web is this vast place (which Facebook is trying to change https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198) and there's no reason they should have been the winners (Friendster was apparently slow, Myspace had that awkward problem of discoverability with people using screen names and also the fact pages could be probably too excessively customized). I can think of several ways in which FB has hurt me directly and hurts other people. But we gave up our power to "they 'trust me', dumb fucks"

losvedir• 4 months ago

How do know she's telling the truth? I'm not inclined to give any high level Meta person (current or former) the benefit of the doubt. I haven't read the book, so I don't really know what kind of, like, proof or anything she includes (or could include). Is it just a "trust me not them" thing?

sethops12• 4 months ago

Why are you disparaging something you admit to knowing nothing about? Read the book or keep your opinion to yourself.

zx8080• 4 months ago

Is it some specific kind of masochism to still use FB? Why do people trust their digital lifes and private and personal messages to Meta?

Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

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