Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand-2/

by HotGarbage • 25 days ago

807 282 25 days ago

jjgreen2• 25 days ago

Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire.

There's quite a bit of competition out there ,,,

mc32• 25 days ago

I kinda get the hate but harking back to the la terreur doesn’t do anyone any favors and instead will engender strange bedfellows.

hedora4• 25 days ago

Do you have a concrete suggestion that is better in some way?

tetris11• 25 days ago

It took the literal burning down of aristocratic homes during the english reforms of 1832 for the House of Lords to finally sit down with Earl Grey and hash out a bill that would finally grant large populated cities like Manchester actual voting rights.

The French Revolution was still fresh in minds of these elites - the July Monarchy having just taken place - and yet still they let it escalate to the point of near civil war.

gilrain• 25 days ago

Oh, well better let them destroy everything with greed then. Wouldn’t want to break, like, five eggs to save every other egg in the world…

The ethics become laughably simple, with as far as they’ve taken the resource imbalance. They should be very worried.

Waterluvian• 25 days ago

I think some people imagine the rule of law to be a replacement for the law of nature. I think it sits in front, protecting all parties from a much more violent form of justice.

If billionaires fail to support the rule of law, especially if they wield their immense power to press on the scales, they should not be surprised when people lose faith in the more civil option.

jjgreen2• 25 days ago

I'd be a happy tricoteur

nullbio3• 25 days ago

People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me". Dumb fucks.

username135• 25 days ago

alex11386• 25 days ago

Oh no, but he was "making a point". Or he was young. He was "right" that it's bad to give up your info (so Zuck hammered home the point by scraping email contacts and using it to populate People You May Know. for your own good)

You didn't hear that out of Myspace or Friendster or anyone else that's trusted with information

Minimum threshold should be "People should be less forgiving of just giving away credentials but now that I have them I'll protect them with my life". Oh well. Apparently I'm just an idiot

He was just joking just like he was joking when he said he'd "fuck the Winklevosses in the ear"

nullbio3• 25 days ago

Of course, we all make mistakes. Just like when he accidentally made a free VPN to spy on peoples traffic. Sorry bros, networking malfunction!

menloshark7• 25 days ago

If you like him so much, you should go work for him. Then call us back

LightBug1• 25 days ago

I submit that the human brain isn't equipped to handle control of multi-hundreds of billions of dollars cap and the working lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Particularly if you're morally suspect to begin with.

This is just one of countless obvious examples.

wat10000• 25 days ago

Money is power. Power corrupts.

smt882• 25 days ago

I wonder if power actually corrupts, or if it’s really that attaining power requires pretending to be a good person, and the mask can fall off after the power is attained.

raverbashing• 25 days ago

I don't think it's fair to blame money in this case

yard20102• 25 days ago

It might be the other way around. There are powerful people with money that simply behave. A few assholes turn things into shit for everyone, when they also have money it just becomes worse.

smt882• 25 days ago

FDR is a very interesting case study. He had the country in the palm of his hand and could have cemented his (or his party’s) power permanently, but instead he left the republic intact.

lokar3• 25 days ago

That’s not what the right thinks. They are obsessed with him and rolling back the new deal.

djeastm• 25 days ago

Hmm... Didn't he try to pack the Supreme Court?

yard20102• 25 days ago

As The President told FDR in Rick and Morty: "Try having an historical administration after Facebook goes online, you old-timey bitch!"

hyhatqtv4• 25 days ago

Well actual dictators generally do those things because they need to subvert the constitutional to stay in power. Roosevelt didn’t need any of that in order to make sure he remained president for the remainder of his lifetime.

After all there was a constitutional amendment pass soon after to stop any president from doing what FDR did.

kmeisthax3• 25 days ago

FDR actually kinda did do that. He broke the Washington precedent and ran for President four times, he scared the Supreme Court shitless to the point where they signed off on blatantly unconstitutional land grabs against Japanese emigrants, and the Democratic Party was able to ride high on the fumes of the Progressive movement for decades afterward.

We don't think of him as a dictator, because a lot of what he did was ultimately reforms necessary to maintain America as a republic. The alternative would have been Nazi America. But he was still exercising dictatorial power, and he was responsible for massively increasing the power of the Presidency as a result. Hell, part of the reason why Trump is so dangerous is specifically because of the damage FDR did to the checks and balances on the Executive Branch.

ceejayoz• 25 days ago

Especially once you start icing out people who push back.

bhickey• 25 days ago

Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma).

The same Joel Kaplan who was involved in a coup?

alex11386• 25 days ago

And now head of global policy at Metabook

KaiserPro6• 25 days ago

The same Joel Kaplan who was involved in a coup?

which coup, you're gonna have to be more specific

rjsw• 25 days ago

This [1] one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

alex11386• 25 days ago

Brooks Brothers demonstration for the 2000 election

joquarky2• 25 days ago

That is one of those events that makes me dislike the many worlds interpretation.

datakan• 25 days ago

Seems pretty clear to me that he's a full blown sociopath. I know it's bad form to diagnose people online but the guy basically prides himself on it and makes no attempt to hide it. He just doesn't view others as human being.

pydry• 25 days ago

This is quite normal. Most billionaires spend their life surrounded by people who flatter them and indulge their every whim and agree with their every prejudice.

throwyawayyyy• 25 days ago

It's the Silicon Valley circular-reasoning meritocracy in action: those with the billions deserve to have the billions because they have managed to get the billions. Every extra dollar only goes to prove how little they need to listen to those with less.

cyanydeez• 25 days ago

at some point we have to accept that money turns normal people into paychopaths along multiple trajectories. and tax the shit out of them to prevent the healthcare costs.

hack1312• 25 days ago

“Paychopaths” is a pretty apt typo

hyhatqtv4• 25 days ago

He just doesn't view others as human being

Well (allegedly) being a robot lizard would explain that. Neither are known for a lot of empathy towards human beings.

consensus12• 25 days ago

You don't know anything about him. He doesn't speak in public much and every single source on him has obvious incentives to lie.

avalys2• 25 days ago

“Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.”

This did not happen and I’m not aware of any evidence or allegations that it did. Williams claims that Meta indicated they would accept China’s demand to give the Chinese government access to Chinese users’ data, as a condition of being allowed to operate in China. This is not the same as access to “all of Facebook”, and it didn’t happen at all because operating permission was never granted.

So, the author is a liar who distorts facts to make for a more interesting article. Don’t waste your time listening to people with no integrity.

What else that this article claims is distorted bullshit, I wonder?

Next time you read an article from “Pluralistic”, ask yourself, are they telling the truth or are they lying to push an agenda?

I have no particular connection to Zuck or Meta. I just find this behavior incredibly obnoxious and hypocritical.

laweijfmvo• 25 days ago

i think the article is saying that’s what the book claims, not whether it’s true or false.

GlibMonkeyDeath• 25 days ago

That's a quote from Corey Doctorow, not Sarah Wynn-Williams. I read her book. She was pretty careful to use your language (i.e., that it was offered, but not implemented, and was China-only data from what she related. Not that that is great either, of course...)

Her main allegations (that Facebook/Meta optimizes for profit at the expense of everything else) seem pretty unsurprising. I mean, given what has been observed, is this in any way controversial?

avalys2• 25 days ago

I’m referring to Doctorow’s credibility, not Williams.

potatos22• 25 days ago

it was called project aldrain. multiple internal employees made company wide memos on internal platforms and resigned. they factually did the stuff your talking about.

hedora4• 25 days ago

The Chinese rejected the offer, so I’m not sure what your point is.

Here’s an article from the Atlantic that was sponsored by the Koch Brothers (so, good luck arguing one sided political bias!) on Zuck’s strategy for whitewashing censorship of political speech:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191115132324/https://www.theat...

loeg2• 25 days ago

So, the author [Doctorow] is a liar who distorts facts to make for a more interesting article. Don’t waste your time listening to people with no integrity.
What else that this article claims is distorted bullshit, I wonder?

E.g., "including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar." You can certainly accuse Facebook of being incompetent at monitoring and moderating speech in Myanmar but calling it "knowing" or "encouraging" is just a lie. There's plenty to criticize without lying, but the lying ruins your case.

ppsreejith• 25 days ago

Agreed. I don't like that you're downvoted for pointing this out as the language is very weasel-wordy (revealed to have? by who? what is all of Facebook?):

Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook

Tbf, the book actually makes the right claim that it's Chinese user data, not all of Facebook so the article is to blame.

stellar678• 22 days ago

Thing about Doctorow is, his primary driver is rage-based attention on himself. He seems to have very little regard for evidence or facts if that gets in the way of a rage-inducing story.

His appearance on Ezra Klein's podcast a couple months ago surfaced a fabricated story about nurses being offered lower pay based on their credit report: https://www.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/1qzp3sz/doctorow...

If we're going to have an effective movement checking bad behavior of big tech companies, we better start policing people like Doctorow who put themselves at the center of things with made-up shit and risk blowing the credibility of the whole movement.

liendolucas• 25 days ago

All that it was ruled against her should be illegal. It should also be illegal for companies to add abusive contract clauses that directly go against basic rights as freedom of speech.

Disgusting set of human beings Zuck and company.

Read the book and then decide if it's worth continuing on FB.

mananaysiempre3• 25 days ago

I mean, a lot of people these days, including a lot of anti-Facebook techies, seem to think it is right and proper to equate “freedom of speech” to the First Amendment to the US Constitution, scoped to the government only, whereas private actors can do whatever. (Though now that I think about it I don’t know if Doctorow does—hopefully not but I’ve been disappointed by quite a few childhood idols in this way over the last decade.)

Unproductive schadenfreude aside, how does one get not punishing opinions—even those that would put the listener in danger if implemented—broadly accepted as a value? I hesitate to say “accepted again” because I’m getting the impression this was always a fringe position, it’s just that on occasion said fringe intersected with the similarly small circle of people whose opinions were broadly publicized.

BoxFour2• 25 days ago

how does one get not punishing opinions—even those that would put the listener in danger if implemented—broadly accepted as a value?

Taking you literally, I don't think that's possible. Social punishment (in the form of shunning, boycotts, "cancelling", etc) has been around as long as human society has existed and is incredibly popular.

If someone figures out how to reliably solve that, a few nobel prizes are probably awaiting them.

If you want to take a subset of this problem, maybe it's possible: Like if you mean corporations specifically, not all private actors.

KaiserPro6• 25 days ago

The problem for Wynn-Williams is that she would have signed a non-disparage agreement with facebook to get that healthcare and payment after being sacked. She hints at it in the book.

The reason why I assert this is because everyone who accepts a payoff from facebook also has to sign one. Like Facebook's employment contracts, which are essentially identical apart from the bonus, name, title and location, I strongly suspect the non-disparagement agreement is also largely the same.

They basically say that "Meta agrees to not call you a piece of shit, but you agree to never talk about facebook in public. if you do, we will ask for all that money back, as a debt"

Now, as its contract law, and depending on where the contract says its valid, there might be ways to allow what Wynn-Williams is doing. After all, you cant contract out of legal obligations.

If Cory spent more time actually doing research, rather than reeling off allegories like an LLM, we might have got some actual insight from him. Alas, its down to randoms on HN to do that.

nilirl• 25 days ago

denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta

How ... how is that legal? Why would that ever be made legal?

Apparently businesses can use contracts to opt out of regular public courts and agree on using a neutral decision-maker; an arbitrator.

But then the post says:

Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge

Huh? How's that legal?

Turns out, the law requires arbitrators to be neutral, but not the people choosing the arbitrators.

Arbitration services are businesses. So even though Meta doesn't directly pay the arbitrator, they pay the business picking the arbitrator.

Meaning, Meta has a long-term relationship with the arbitration service provider. They can choose to take their business elsewhere, if unhappy.

Imagine being Wynn-Williams, having a company of this size put a target on your head. I wonder how many live in silence because the paycheck is too good or the punishment too bad.

But an even larger point: most of HN is probably employed by a company that aspires to be Meta; HN is run by a VC fund that wants to make many Metas; and worse, unfortunately, I sometimes dream of being a Zuckerberg.

I am thoroughly seduced by a power I've never felt, even if I see it as poison.

CPLX• 25 days ago

It’s not legal. There is a current federal lawsuit on this exact topic.

grayhatter• 25 days ago

I am thoroughly seduced by a power I've never felt, even if I see it as poison.

Meditate on the idea of the negative sum game the people who seek power prefer, and then about what you'd rather see them, or yourself do with that power. Because of the things I actually care about, I find that random fantastical/idealistic desire for power to be hollow, something much easier to see in comparison. I don't care about power, for powers sake (the best way, perhaps only way, to obtain power itself). All my power fantasies involve some sort of stopping people from using their power to abuse and take from others.

There's nothing wrong being seduced by power, if you're worried about how it might corrupt your ethical principals, just don't be foolish enough to copy the small minded power seekers (humans do love to emulate the people the see around them). You can seek and hold power, and then use it to do good things. Is that harder? Probably, but I can't articulate a single reason it would be harder than doing good things without power, which most people already don't do. So don't be tricked into power being the thing that corrupts. Most people are just shitty, and very few have meaningful power; sample bias can be a bitch.

jacobgold3• 25 days ago

Meta said in a statement that its “she accepted a large severance payment years ago...”

This is the only point from Meta that is legitimate. If she accepted payment in exchange for signing an NDA and then violated it, the appropriate remedy in this should be that she returns the money.

Which doesn't change the fact that Zuckerberg should be ashamed of using NDAs as a weapon like this. It's very small minded from a man who clearly wants to see himself as a great man of history.

bob001• 25 days ago

using NDAs as a weapon like this.

This is standard in companies. I've seen companies give a pittance in exchange for a binding NDA and the person took it because they needed to pay rent that month. Meta is evil but in this case so is almost every other company and especially tech companies. Also, giving it back doesn't undo the contract, the deal was done.

jacobgold3• 25 days ago

Yes, NDAs are very common, but there are more and less ethical ways to use them.

A judge can decide to invalidate the contract entirely, which is what I'm suggesting would be the correct remedy in this case.

9999000009992• 25 days ago

Some companies are more evil than others.

Some will lie repeatedly to even avoid paying out a settlement.

In America you have no rights, your lucky if you get paid on time. Even then the actual process to get your back owed wages usually isn't worth the effort.

I worked for a clown once who waited 30 days to tell me he only pays every 60 days.

A friend of mine wasted a full week training, and the employer decided they didn't need him and didn't pay for the training.

If you DARE try and go the legal route you'll find you can basically beg for a settlement, but your employer can just say no.

Going to court isn't going to be worth it since the system is heavily stacked against you.

KaiserPro6• 25 days ago

everyone who accepts a payout from meta agrees to be bound by the non-disclosure agrement from the employment contract.

They also agree to a non-disparagement agreement. this is where Meta agrees not to chat shit about you, in return for you never talking publicly about them. The problem is, thats a fairly effective tool to enforce a lowly employee not chatting shit about a former company.

What I don't know is, what her penalty is. Espcially as both parties have disparaged each other publicly.

kleton• 25 days ago

Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire.

That might be a bit generous to assume that he has this theory of mind

rwmj2• 25 days ago

He did build a massive bunker in Hawaii though. And a second one for his wife.

akudha• 25 days ago

My guess would be - there is way more primitive explanation than setting an example etc (which is also a good reason, from their point of view). It is just plain ego and pettiness - we see it everywhere, even from a manager who has 3 people reporting to him. Why else would Zuck cheat on a board game, of all things? That too in private?

It might just be as primitive as "I have more money than God, therefore I am better than everyone else, nobody dare to challenge/disrespect me even in the slightest". Blind rage can make people do things that they themselves can't understand

SpicyLemonZest6• 25 days ago

Or perhaps Zuck didn't cheat on the board game, and the claim that he did is one of the purported falsehoods Meta says the book contains. That would also explain it.

rwmj2• 25 days ago

If he really doesn't cheat at board games, the power move would be to completely ignore the accuser.

kylecazar• 25 days ago

This applies to Elon's incredibly strange video game cheating scandal too.

It's pathetic and weird.

altairprime• 25 days ago

This all makes a lot more sense when you consider that Elon Musk is trying to dethrone/succeed Richard Branson, but can only manage a knockoff-grade impersonation at best. Cheating is about the feeling of defeating other people without the moral restrictions against cheating that obviously limit them, but cheaters aren’t attractive to non-cheaters; thus the sockpuppet account, to get that prized feeling of defeat without damaging the main caricature.

rustystump3• 25 days ago

That was i think the most revealing thing about his character bar none because of how mundane it all was.

Anyone with a tiny bit of video game background called that out from miles away. It was so pathetic. Richest dude in world with spaceship company. Has nothing to prove. Cheats, lies, and gaslights when caught.

Has to be “number one” at a video game that has virtually zero skill where rank is almost entirely who grinds more. Eg time.

What a weird and sad thing to do. So unimaginably insecure.

Any billionaire you know the name of, is probably not too far off from this. There are alot of rich people who are secure with themselves. Zuck aint one if em.

dahart• 25 days ago

It is just plain ago and pettiness […] Why else would Zuck cheat on a board game

Recently I felt somewhat enlightened on this point, specifically in regards to Trump cheating at golf and some of his bald-faced lies, but I’d speculate it applies here too. Others pointed out to me that while it might look petty and ridiculous to normal people, it’s a social power move to get away with things, and serves the purpose of testing what can be gotten away with, and practicing or exercising the push dynamic. It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor. It may be somewhat important that the cheating is visible. It can also be social signaling to see who comes to their defense when called out, which is an effect that has been playing out on the national stage with obvious lies being repeated, defended, or excused. It’s not about what’s true, but about people showing the rule breaker who’s on their side, and giving them the power to break rules.

This, BTW, to me is a depressing and pessimistic view of power and politics and humanity, and I don’t think these kinds of power moves are something to aspire to, nor do they always work. But as a framework I have to admit it has a lot of explanatory power.

martythemaniak• 25 days ago

This is a good observation, because this tactic is a hallmark of Putin and authoritarianism in general. What he does just lie about something where he knows it's a lie and the audience knows it's a lie, and he knows that the audience knows that he's lying, but the audience is powerless to correct him, so it is his way of demonstrating his power over the audience. He is saying to them that he is so powerful and dominating that he is in charge of their reality.

Masha Gessen has written a fair bit about this.

jordanb• 25 days ago

This is called "Fuckery:" I tell you a lie. You know it's a lie. I know you know it's a lie. But you have to pretend that you believe it because of the power I have over you.

The Fuckery is a demonstration of that power.

mindslight2• 25 days ago

I don't know how much this applies to cheating at Catan. Regardless of social standing, few people are going to stop you from cheating at Catan because it helps everyone's goal - to be done with the game of Catan. Although perhaps repeatedly making people play Catan is itself that social power move.

deepfriedchokes• 25 days ago

What you are describing is Narcissistic Personality Disorder behavior. It is psychological abuse.

api• 25 days ago

Liars like to lie, and you often see them express what's called "duper's delight" at fooling people. Dark triad types (narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths) will often lie about petty things just to get off on their ability to mislead people.

It's also a form of gaslighting. It makes people doubt their sanity, because nobody would lie about such a thing. It creates an aura of reality distortion around such people and inside that aura they can define reality as they see fit.

Until we learn to see through this stuff and stop elevating such people to positions of extreme power, we deserve what we get.

Unfortunately there’s a pretty large number of people who actually think we need people like this to “do things.” It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. If you stack the ranks of power with dark triad types, then of course that’s the only kind of person who can work in that world. You create a world where only toxic people can get things done and then are surprised that only toxic people can get things done.

johnvanommen• 25 days ago

It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor.

It’s one of the most famous scenes in The Wire: when Marlo steals a lollipop.

notahacker3• 25 days ago

Whilst make outrageous claims to assert power is definitely a thing, I think the null hypothesis is less that they're playing 4D chess and more that people who constantly get away with stuff and constantly get told they're geniuses like spoiled children end up behaving like spoiled children. It's like for every "van Halen wants the brown M&Ms removed to audit the venue staff's attention to detail" anecdote there are 100 stars making extravagant demands who are just divas.

Zuck cheating at board games me of Elon buying a claim to being a great Path of Exile and Diablo player. Nobody believes he is, and nobody is loyalty tested into praising his ability at computer games, not even people who work at his companies. He gets mocked for it on his own website. The few people that would actually be impressed by a claim of being good at Path of Exile and Diablo know exactly how bad he is at it and find it pitiful; ironically it actually dents his reputation with a demographic disproportionately likely to be impressed by other things about him. Other people aren't inclined to think highly of him for playing those games in the first place, never mind paying others to boost his account. The reality is simply that when he's interested in a game he can't abide the idea of not being really good at it, and cheating and getting others to do stuff for you is the easiest way to appear really good at it. Especially when you're used to ignoring people calling you out...

TheOtherHobbes2• 25 days ago

I doubt it's as calculated as that. Trump literally has no concept of truth, so he doesn't lie for strategic reasons. He says whatever makes him feel best about himself moment to moment.

This is textbook narcissism - confusing to those who expect some kind of object constancy who can't deliver it, but predictable from the syndrome.

He also intimidates and threatens more directly, but that doesn't get reported on the news.

Zuckerberg seems similarly fragile, but in a less overt way.

When you have insane levels of wealth your world revolves around your self-image and your desires, your peers are all at similar levels of dysfunction, no one else is likely to challenge you for obvious reasons, so you become socially unmoored and drift into Wealth Induced Psychosis.

menloshark7• 25 days ago

This is really common at his company btw, this shit trickles down from leadership.

For example, a director wrote a post internally solely with AI, didn't review it at all, directly plagiarized a bunch of stuff that other people wrote, and left a bunch of typos like [[link]]. It was just a post about why we need to use more AI or some bullshit like that.

I had a direct manager who did shit way worse than this on a regular basis. Once people just learn to expect constant psycho head games and shit testing 24/7, the lost good will is not recoverable.

I think the weird thing with meta is that this type of weird bullshit is a company-wide phenomenon. Like them turning around and forcing 8k people to do data labeling work. A lot of the victims were super late in their careers and highly specialized. And the same guy who forced this thing on everyone (the CTO) has now turned around and publicly criticized MZ for messing up morale.

Funnily enough, my manager did a lot of the same thing, maliciously creating a problem and then trying to blame it on someone else. A lot of these little games trickle down. As a company, they tend to select for people like Elizabeth Holmes

chistev2• 24 days ago

Like Marlo with the security guard.

uxhacker• 25 days ago

For a bit more context the Belarusian activist built on the anti communist Polish Activist Waldemar "Major" Fydrych who in the 1980’s was arrested by the communist authorities in Poland for handing out female sanitary products.

As he said “The Western World will find out much more about the situation in Poland from hearing that I was put to jail for giving tampons to a woman, than from reading the books and articles written by other people from the opposition.”

SoftTalker3• 25 days ago

Hallmarks of a sociopath. Trying to rationalize what he does in terms of normal ethics and motivations is a fool's errand.

voakbasda2• 24 days ago

This sums it up. I can’t understand how people think these people are anything but the world’s worst sociopaths. I cannot understand how so many people idolize and buy into them.

leoc• 25 days ago

The story about cheating at Scrabble bears a fairly close resemblance to the episode in the Tintin comic Flight 714 https://tintin.fandom.com/wiki/Flight_714 in which megarich industrialist Laszlo Carreidas cheats at Battleship while flying on his private jet https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1i6cv... . If the Scrabble incident really did happen then it's uncomfortable how close it comes to a fictional detail deliberately written to make Carreidas look unscrupulous and a bit ridiculous.

bconsta• 25 days ago

Too similar to Goldfinger cheating at cards and golf to not make me chuckle.

hsvsy65• 25 days ago

Some times its just underling opportunists (which is basically zucks inner circle at this point) defending the empire. Keeping that stupid child emperor on the throne is in their interest.

IncreasePosts• 25 days ago

Maybe it's the same thing with we see with many (but not all) sports stars. Getting fame and fortune at a young age ossifies any kind of personal development that happens in people after that point.

hsuduebc2• 25 days ago

I agree. Most people go mad when they receive that kind of power. Aristocracy was trained to rule at some point because you really easily become just a tyrand instead of a ruler. Zuckerberg was just a nerd when it started, then within a few years he turned into an icon and basically later turned mad.

The only things this man and his companies produce are subpar software products, which I personally do not understand. How is that even possible for a company with that much money? Their best app is the one he bought, then filled with a TikTok copy.

For me, the surprising part is not just that he is obviously an evil piece of shit. It is that he is an evil, rather incompetent piece of shit. The amount of money he has thrown out the window just to promote cringe, nonsensical ideas like the Metaverse or their botched AI only confirms how surrounded he is by chronic yes men who keep approving his ridiculous ideas.

In some time he began to be caricature of it selves and make it all more even more bizzare.

alex11386• 17 days ago

Well... uh

'When it started' was 2003. The same year as his 'dumb fucks' quote or hacking reporters who were investigating him

That's not 'being a nerd [nice person] when it started'

nerdyadventurer• 24 days ago

Actually this is not specific to rich or US, this is behavior in most of western countries. This started with colonialism, where one consider superior than others in every aspect, so they can do whatever they please. Many are still blinded by this ego, which is the reason for current geopolitical stability. We should understand that sometimes we are the problem. Simon Sinek have great talk with historical example on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWEI9FDf-0g

glaslong• 24 days ago

Whether or not the emperor is aware of his New Clothes, the effect on his courtiers is the same

leonidasrup• 24 days ago

In general you don't become and stay a bilionare just by pure luck, you have to be very inteligent and ruthless, no moral qualms.

" Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuckerberg: Just ask

Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.

Zuckerberg: I don't know why.

Zuckerberg: They "trust me"

Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks "

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

arcbyte• 24 days ago

Lol. I would have said exactly the same thing at 20 years old and be just as disgusted by it at 30. People grow up.

chistev2• 24 days ago

I missed the board game story!

Was it discussed here on Hacker News?

gherkinnn• 25 days ago

Yet another reminder that

a) Meta is a nasty company

b) Zuck has neither the taste nor the vision to get Meta to build anything. He will continue to mine his current platforms to finance whatever is hot that day. Yesterday it was glasses, today it is betting and tomorrow it will be something else. Forever chasing what he can never attain.

c) Reality is banal. Zuck's merry band of sycophants lets him cheat at Settlers of Catan.

SpicyLemonZest6• 25 days ago

I don't understand the purpose of an analysis that goes on for pages and pages without even mentioning that Meta says Wynn-Williams isn't telling the truth. I'm not saying you have to agree with them! But if you don't acknowledge their stated position you're not going to be able to make sense of the situation.

ryandrake3• 25 days ago

Of course they are going to deny. Whether or not they actually did the things claimed, there is no universe where denying isn’t the best tactic. So their denials in and of themselves don’t mean anything. Every single company accused of wrongdoing publicly denies, all the way up to and including when they settle or are found to have actually done the wrongdoing.

SpicyLemonZest6• 25 days ago

Again, I don't think the fact that they're denying it requires you to agree. But if you want to develop an accurate understanding of the world, you have to acknowledge that they are denying it, and evaluate how well this denial explains their actions before launching into complex alternative theories.

unknownfuture• 25 days ago

Then take her to court for libel and prove it. Facebook execs have absolutely not earned the benefit of the doubt, here.

SpicyLemonZest6• 25 days ago

I agree. She sued them a few days ago over it, and reiterates a couple of the worst claims in her complaint, so presumably over the course of that case the two sides will try to prove or disprove them. (It shouldn't be too surprising that Meta didn't start a court battle earlier - is there a single person on the planet who would read "Meta Platforms files $10 million defamation suit against whistleblower" and become less angry at Meta?)

mjamesaustin• 25 days ago

There's a clear remedy if she lied about them in print – sue her for libel. And I can't imagine one of the richest corporations in the world would have trouble winning that lawsuit, if it actually were the case.

rpgbr• 25 days ago

Just like in Justice, where every suspect always say they are to blame when they did commit a crime.

(It's a great book, Mark and co. are more awful people we thought they were.)

dofm4• 25 days ago

"Well he would, wouldn't he?"

— Mandy Rice-Davies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_he_would,_wouldn%27t_he%3...

dofm4• 25 days ago

It's not increasingly bizarre, really, if you just allow for the possibility of one thing:

There's something else worse that they know could be in such a book, but isn't yet, and it is so bad that it is worth doing this.

Perhaps they know that Wynn-Williams could have put it in the book and didn't. Perhaps they know that someone else — someone else British, say? — could write such things in a book and so far hasn't.

Once you assume their motivation is grounded in real fear, it gets easier to see why this isn't bizarre at all; it's inevitable.

alex11386• 25 days ago

someone else British, say?

I genuinely don't know what this is in reference to but it's notable Christopher Wylie got suspended on FB

Which is obviously more of a priority than any number of horrible things you could report which never get taken down

spinningslate• 25 days ago

I’d hazard a guess they might be referring to an ex-British politician who went on to have a high profile role in comms at meta.

fwipsy2• 25 days ago

The article mentions:

But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because:
a) They've done even worse things since Wynn-Williams parted ways with the company; and
b) They're laying off thousands of workers because their giant bet on AI has been a flop, leaving them with a massive cash crunch; and
c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.

sowbug• 25 days ago

Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

GauntletWizard• 25 days ago

They have done worse things, since the beginning, that they know about but people are not primed to understand yet. Each whistleblower brings us closer to full understanding, bit by bit, showing that even the lower ranks see and are party to things that are unthinkable to the older generation and that the younger are only now waking up to being not okay.

neilv• 25 days ago

The article's theory is similar:

But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because: [...] c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.

cataphract• 25 days ago

Surely if it was that bad someone would reveal it anonymously to the press.

alexashka2• 25 days ago

Employee - Large organization.

Mosquito - Human.

You don't swat a mosquito out of fear, you swat it out of preventing a minor nuisance.

A whistleblower is a mosquito that's bitten a human. The most likely outcome is an imminent, violent swat, resulting in career destruction.

lelandfe• 25 days ago

Retaliating against whistleblowers is bad publicity and possibly even illegal depending on what's being uncovered, so orgs do have countervailing pressure to not swat too hard, whereas there is no pressure on a human to do the same with an insect.

Well, unless you're the president: https://www.npr.org/2009/06/18/105574084/peta-wants-obama-to...

alexpotato• 25 days ago

I remember during the Google anti-trust case that there was example after example of "people behaving badly". Most of these were tools in the anti-competitive bucket but it does make you wonder about the things that happen that were never committed to code nor written down.

matheusmoreira3• 25 days ago

Where can I read an exhaustive list of these examples?

fmajid2• 25 days ago

I am assuming you are referring to Nick Clegg. The British are very easy to cow and bankrupt thanks to egregious libel laws that put the burden of proof on the defendant. They also have super injunctions allowing wrongdoers like Trafigura to silence whistleblowers and journalists.

nerdsniper• 25 days ago

egregious libel laws

Apparently you can get off scot-free in Britain even if you say/write things that are generally considered defamation per se as long as you claim that you utilized the "JDART" strategy:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593

JDART: "Joke that was badly received, therefore Deleted, with an Apology and then Responsive Tweets to move on from the matter."

breppp• 25 days ago

Quite an amazing feat by the author of the book to absolve herself from any responsibility for what happened, and triumphally sanctify herself as a silenced martyr

overfeed• 25 days ago

They teach this sort of literary analysis in high school. You should not take the words as a complete and unbiased retelling of history - just one point of view. Knowing who the author is, their role and possible biases helps place what they say (and choose not say) in context.

speedster217• 25 days ago

Yeah I thought it was very obvious that the author was more careless and complicit than she was admitting.

mschuster91• 25 days ago

Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire. But both Lukashenka and Zuckerberg are willing to be thought a thin-skinned bully, so long as that means the people they oppress the most are too terrified to ever challenge their authority.

... but eventually, external circumstances change, despite all the vain hope of those in power that they don't.

For Lukashenka, it's Ukraine blasting Russia's oil infrastructure to pieces - his regime has always depended on Mother Russia, but should Mother Russia (hopefully) collapse, he's done for.

And for Zuckerberg? And all the other vile big tech execs that kissed Trump's ring [1]? The population is fed up, radical (at least when measured by usual US standards) politicians have actual chances of getting elected on the Democrat side... they all will face justice.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/09/google-mi...

kgwxd• 25 days ago

Malicious. Not bizarre, not "weird", not ADHD, not out-of-touch. Stop giving awful people the benefit of the doubt, and start showing them the consequences of malice.

microgpt7• 25 days ago

Consequences of malice: you become extremely powerful. Seems like a good deal to me

game_the0ry5• 25 days ago

People complain about meta all the time. Clearly, its a scumbag company.

There is only one way to make him hurt: boycott all meta products. Uninstall facebook, instagram, whatsapp.

Edit -- I am getting downvoted for this comment. I can't say I am surprised, most of you are too programmed to think for yourselves.

UncleOxidant• 25 days ago

Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes either. Complaining is one thing (and it's certainly valid to complain about Meta), but nothing's going to change if a lot of people still use their service. Sure, one person getting off of the Meta platform isn't going to do anything, but millions could have an effect - if only to give less power to the company.

I deleted my Meta account last year and haven't missed it.

game_the0ry5• 25 days ago

Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes either.

I do -- meta's products are inherently addictive and the network effect is powerful, so people would rather cope and complain than take meaningful but inconvenient action. This is how zuck wins, every time.

I deleted my Meta account last year and haven't missed it.

Me too and so has most of my family.

Terr_3• 25 days ago

There is only one way to

Zuckerberg et al. would actually prefer that we all think that, so that we just stop there and don't proceed to more-effective politics.

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/

game_the0ry5• 25 days ago

You may have given up. I didn't.

gverrilla• 25 days ago

'guillotine' > boycott

game_the0ry5• 25 days ago

If you don’t have the gumption to delete insta from your iPhone, you’ll never muster the courage for violence.

gradientsrneat• 24 days ago

I too do not understand the downvotes.

Unlike what Cory Doctorow implies, Facebook is not a Soviet Dictatorship. There is no Berlin wall. If you don't like it, you can just leave.

khurs3• 25 days ago

So what happened with the 11m fine that the whistleblower was asked to pay?

noisy_boy• 25 days ago

Seems that the fine was calculated and hung like Democles' sword over the whistleblower's head to keep her silent instead of actually attempting to collect it. Basically an arm-twisting tactic. What better can you expect from a shit company like that.

alok-g• 25 days ago

> ... conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration).

Aren't the clauses on non-disclosure, arbitration, etc., common in non-Meta employment contracts as well?

ben_w• 25 days ago

Aren't the clauses on non-disclosure, arbitration, etc., common in non-Meta employment contracts as well?

They are.

Personally, I think the law should require that nondisclosure agreements should be strictly time-bound[0], ban all non-disparagement agreements[1], and replace binding arbitration with non-binding arbitration or mediation[2] that can still be escalated to a court if it breaks down.

[0] by how much I am uncertain, but outside of national security considerations I can't think of anything that needs to last longer than a patent would have.

[1] Two arguments: (a) basic freedom of speech; (b) I am British by birth. The UK is so famous for being an easy place to sue for libel that the US passed laws making fines from British courts non-enforceable in the US; why then does the US allow private companies to insert the same effect via contract? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#United_States

[2] Court cases are really expensive for everyone. Arbitration is much cheaper and this itself can absolutely benefit workers and customers.

zeroonetwothree3• 25 days ago

If non disparagement agreements weren’t allowed wouldn’t employers have less reason to make severance payments? We would expect average severance payment amounts to decrease under this scenario. So it’s not clear that this is the ideal outcome to employees, who might prefer more $.

zeroonetwothree3• 25 days ago

I believe the nondisparagement clause was signed as part of a termination agreement? So that part seems inaccurate at least.

stephc_int13• 25 days ago

It is the same reasoning as with the regular Decimation. It is all about disciplining their employees.

And it works.

We're not saying many ex or current Meta employees talking about their experiences here, even if I am sure that HN is pretty popular among this crowd.

And of course this is not unique to Zuck/Meta. We don't hear much from people working for Musk either.

andsoitis• 25 days ago

Could it be that people actually like their work there?

mlrtime2• 24 days ago

Your text is gray, is this irony or proving the point?

hn_throwaway_99• 25 days ago

We're not saying many ex or current Meta employees talking about their experiences here, even if I am sure that HN is pretty popular among this crowd.

This is just false I think. I'd have to search for it, but in some of the recent stories about how morale at Meta is at an all-time low due to the layoffs and fiefdom-building I recall seeing a number of current and former Meta employees comment.

Plus, my guess is that the vast, vast majority of Facebook employees just aren't privy to outright illegal acts, and most people aren't going to break their nondisparagement clause just to break the latest bitchy thing somebody said regarding Zuck.

Anon1096• 25 days ago

That's because you pretty quickly catch downvotes from people with sour grapes whenever you talk good about working at big tech. Quadruply so for companies much more hated than average like Palantir/Meta/Oracle. It's just what echo chamber downvoting culture gives you it doesn't really have to do with what's happening internally. They're very very happy to spill beans and talk about the current environment on Blind which is a lot less hostile.

menloshark7• 25 days ago

They're very very happy to spill beans and talk about the current environment on Blind which is a lot less hostile.

This is funny, Blind is even more negative on the general company sentiment than this place. People are saying the current morale right now is the worst it's ever been.

zeroonetwothree3• 25 days ago

If you are a former employee you don’t have much to gain by commenting here. If you say anything that isn’t unequivocally negative you will get downvoted into oblivion.

menloshark7• 25 days ago

And of course this is not unique to Zuck/Meta. We don't hear much from people working for Musk either.

Because they're being forced to works nights and weekends and don't have time

softwaredoug• 25 days ago

It’s hard to have sympathy for Zuck when Facebook / instagram don’t police misinformation about other people. Sort of ensnared in a trap of his own making.

nikkwong• 25 days ago

Their lackadaisical attitude towards scams and misleading information on their platforms is just utterly mind blowing. The other day I was suggested a post from an account of a beautiful girl with 150k followers which, upon investigation, is not a real person but a character generated with AI; whose profile links out to a bunch of sites trying to get people to pay for nude images or download nefarious apps like gambling, crypto, etc. Though not technically illegal, it’s a total moral hazard and is yet another nail in the coffin in our goal to maintain an equitable society.

The people that work at the company are smart, and I’m sure many of them are compassionate. I just don’t know what kind of people can sign off on product decisions like this that truly erode trust, community fabric, and make our world ultimately so much worse. It’s heartbreaking that someone like zuck is the one leading this initiative, you could pick any random person off the street and they would lead the company in a direction that was better for mankind.

derwiki• 25 days ago

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

codexb• 25 days ago

"Whistleblowing" requires something illegal to have occurred. It doesn't appear any of the disclosures being made about Facebook allege anything illegal. They are just disparaging insider information. Anyone who has worked in tech for any amount of time has signed an NDA. They are not nefarious.

sterlind2• 25 days ago

Merriam Webster defines whistleblowing as:

one who reveals something covert or who informs against another especially : an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or by other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency

Wikipedia further asserts:

Whistleblowing is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed wrongful – whether it be illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical, or fraudulent

Arguably, nothing the NSA was doing was illegal. Was Snowden not a whistleblower?

r3trohack3r• 25 days ago

Arguably, nothing the NSA was doing was illegal.

The Supreme Court disagreed; the surveillance program was illegal.

laughing_man• 25 days ago

And if something illegal has happened, non-disclosure agreements can't be enforced regarding disclosure of that activity. At least, not in the US.

mike_hock• 25 days ago

"Whistleblowing" does refer to disclosing morally bankrupt behavior that isn't technically illegal, and NDAs are nefarious if they cover anything other than trade secrets.

bayarearefugee• 25 days ago

Anyone who has worked in tech for any amount of time has signed an NDA. They are not nefarious.

Non-Disclosure agreements to protect a company's legitimate business and trade secrets aren't nefarious.

But I'd argue that Non-Disparagement agreements or non-disparagement clauses that block disclosure of inappropriate personal behavior is, in fact, nefarious.

danny_codes2• 25 days ago

I'm surprised they're legal. In fact, it looks like there are strict limits on them in CA

thayne2• 25 days ago

As used in common speech, whistleblowing also applies to exposing unethical or dangerous behavior, even if it is technically legal.

Anyone who has worked in tech for any amount of time has signed an NDA.

Just because something is ubiquitous doesn't mean it's ok.

Not that NDAs are always bad, but they should have limited scope, and maybe expirations.

And blanket non-disparagement agreements that prevent employees from ever saying anything bad about their employer are clearly bad.

gmerc• 25 days ago

I guess in Epstein country, Sexual Assault is legal now.

charcircuit• 25 days ago

Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge

Arbitration is paid for by both parties and of course there isn't a judge when you go to arbitration due to having a civil dispute.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 25 days ago

Here's the complaint:

https://ia803204.us.archive.org/15/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

128. The Merits Arbitrator refused to do so. Instead, during a status conference regarding the sanctions motion on April 22, 2026, the Merits Arbitrator held the motion open and stated that if Ms. Wynn-Williams voluntarily appeared at an event, including the Hay Festival, where she knows or should know that her book will be available for sale, or knows or should know that her presence there will likely encourage book sales, then she has likely violated the Interim Award.

129. As Ms. Wynn-Williams's counsel pointed out during the conference, this was an exceptionally broad conception of the scope of the Interim Award one that extended far beyond the text of the Severance Agreement and dramatically increased the burden on Ms. Wynn-Williams. Counsel attempted to clarify that the Merits Arbitrators comment applied only to situations in which the actual event organizer made the book available for sale in connection with Ms. Wynn Williams's appearance, pointing out that the Hay Festival, for example, did not appear to do so but instead simply had a link on the event website to another site run by a separate organization that offered books written by Hay Festival speakers. But, notwithstanding that the details of the Hay Festival appearance had been fully briefed by the parties in their submissions on the sanctions motion, the Merits Arbitrator refused to clarify, stating that there was too much factual granularity for him to give any further guidance and that Ms. Wynn-Williams needed to conform her conduct to what she thinks is appropriate given his endorsement of the Interim Awards vague proscription on promotion

135. In addition, fearful that anything she said could be the basis of another sanctions motion and wishing to protest that constraint on her speech, Ms. Wynn-Williams appeared for the panel but sat in silence for its entire duration, neither speaking nor responding to any question or remark. Ms. Wynn-Williams did not understand that speaking on a panel with Ms. Cadwalladr and Mr. Wu would violate the Interim Award given her intention not to refer to Meta or Careless People, but assumed that Meta would accuse her of endorsing things the other panelists whom Meta believes are some of its known critics might say. Ms. Wynn-Williams also believed that making the alternative decision to cancel her appearance due to the Interim Award would also have drawn attention to Careless People that Meta would interpret as promotion of the book.

136. Notwithstanding that Ms. Wynn-Williams remained silent and did not say anything about Meta or her book and that the Hay Festival removed her book as requested in order to avoid any suggestion of promotion under the Merits Arbitrators guidance, Meta wrote the Merits Arbitrator on June 12, 2026, to request the Merits Arbitrator rule on the sanctions motion immediately and impose additional sanctions based on the Hay Festival.

137. Meta based its request on the fact the other individuals on the panel are, in Meta's view, critics of Meta, suggesting that Ms. Wynn-Williams's mere appearance with those individuals in a public forum was a violation regardless of what she says or whether she speaks at all, and regardless of the fact that she does not control what those individuals say. Meta noted that Ms. Cadwalladr and Mr. Wu responded to Meta's campaign to silence Ms. Wynn-Williams in a manner that Meta found disparaging, alleging that the ensuing controversy resulted in additional sales of Ms. Wynn-Williams's book, notwithstanding that Meta's own actions created that controversy. Meta further suggested that Ms. Wynn-Williams's reaction to her silencing drew attention to herself in a manner that inevitably promoted sales of her book, notwithstanding that Meta's silencing campaign meant that any action Ms. Wynn-Williams took in response including withdrawing from the Hay Festival would have drawn such attention. Meta's exploitation of the Interim Award is thus calculated to make it impossible for her to avoid punishment.

138. Meta's sanctions campaign has been built on sustained surveillance of Ms. Wynn-Williams. Meta's evidentiary submissions in the arbitration have revealed that its representatives attended her public appearances in person, assembled photographs and written records of her movements, and traveled the length of the United Kingdom to do so including making the long journey to rural Wales for the Hay Festival all to document that at each event, Ms. Wynn-Williams said nothing about Meta or her book. In its most recent filing, Meta sought to escalate its coercive surveillance of Ms. Wynn-Williams, asking the Merits Arbitrator to compel Ms. Wynn-Williams to disclose, in advance, a list of her planned public appearances, so that it can continue to monitor where she goes and what she says

teravor2• 25 days ago

if you fancy a potential career as a whitleblower, you should consider writing what you know when you know it and secretly publishing commitment hashes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commitment_scheme). it's much more credible and unassailable when the charge that the claims were made long after the fact for specific purposes is impossible. keep the relevant info in a dedicated password manager vault.

a way to secretly publish commitment hashes is to deposit some small amount of crypto into an address and use that address to embed the hashes into the blockchain (either as metadata or just destroying some crypto a few cents a time). it is important to string all the commitments together in some way (such as coming from the same address) otherwise there could be some doubt about the strategy (for example, spraying claims and disclosing only the ones you want to).

cheesecakegood• 25 days ago

Has anyone created a tool for easily doing this? Imagine if all the Virginia Guiffres of the world created crypto-provable diaries they could later reveal.

teravor2• 25 days ago

i imagine if someone were to make it, it would need to import a private key and export transactions to be manually published as building a crypto wallet around the concept would be too much.

someone who can navigate that process can just use txt files and sha256sum and whatever poweruser wallet they are already using. this isn't a mass market appeal activity, someone serious about it will put in the time to learn if they were inclined to do this.

lovich3• 25 days ago

if you fancy a potential career as a whitleblower,…

Most people don’t fancy a career as a whistleblower. They get their morals pushed further and further until they finally decide it is too much and they take the risk to their life and prosperity.

it's much more credible and unassailable when the charge that the claims were made long after the fact for specific purposes is impossible.

If someone actually joined an org with plans to be a whistleblower I assume people complaining about whistleblowers trustworthiness would then be complaining that it was all lies because they always planned on leaking information.

OrsonSmelles• 25 days ago

If someone actually joined and org with plans to be a whistleblower

Yeah, I mean that's just espionage and should raise your standard of evidence for any claim made. The credibility of whistleblowers comes partly from the idea that they basically believe in the org's mission and were working sincerely to achieve it until they discovered information that they had a higher moral duty to report on. If they came in already believing it was illegitimate and their goal was to find dirt to expose, then you know they were already comfortable with one act of deception and you should consider that they might be comfortable with a second. It's the same heuristic that says not to take Project Veritas videos at face value.

eslaught• 25 days ago

Or, you know, just use a service intended for this purpose:

https://timestamp.stanford.edu/

__MatrixMan__• 17 days ago

If it's sensitive enough to bother with hashing like this, its probably too sensitive for depending on any particular host. Not that I have anything against Stanford in particular but I don't know who maintains that server or how easy they would be to compel.

It's a pity that money poisoned blockchains for general use because they make a lot of sense in cases like this.

slim• 25 days ago

how the hell is arbitration enforcable ? they will need to go to court to enforce it, right ? you surely can't redeem your free speech human right by signing a document, right ? I'm not sure about US, but I'm sure that in most countries human rights can not be surrendered by contract. These kind of clauses are void

LNSY• 25 days ago

Remember when Elon Musk introduced Mark Zuckerberg to Jeffery Epstein?

The Zuck has some skeletons in his closet.

smsm422• 25 days ago

Didn't Wynn-Williams sign an NDA before leaving? What's bizzarre in Facebook trying to hold her to what she voluntarily signed?

callc• 25 days ago

Legality != morality

smsm422• 25 days ago

I didn't discuss morality. I discuss the fact that if somebody signs a contract, draws a salary and other benefits under that contract, then sign another agreement while leaving, get the cash and benefits under that agreement, and then violate all those agreements - there's nothing "bizarre" in the fact that the other side demands to hold the signer responsible. If Wynn-Williams were driven by sense of morality alone, she could say to FB to shove their severance and sign nothing, but she did not.

timoth3y• 25 days ago

A good article about a genuinely great and important book. One quibble.

Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire.

I don't think they think that. People this powerful who choose to surround themselves with fawning sycophants are undoubtably being told daily that the whole world is understanding and routing for them in their "perfectly reasonable response to these vicious attacks."

threethirtytwo• 25 days ago

Heard the book is good. How do we know it’s true?

CaptainZapp• 24 days ago

I just paid CHF 15.90 for the e-book version of Careless People.

Congratulations Assholes!

Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

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