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Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta
- macleginn 6mo agohttps://archive.is/DmiOw https://archive.is/DmiOw
- giwook 6mo agoI'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 6mo agoIt’s also a damn good book! More like Catch-22 than a cheap ”spill the tea” ride.
- vntok 6mo ago[flagged]
- loloquwowndueo 6mo agoMaybe part of the point is to support the authors a bit through purchasing the book.
- vntok 6mo agoProbably not; OP wants to "check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities" and to "Screw Meta and their anti-human business model". Giving money to the author rather than getting it for free has absolutely nothing to do with that laudable goal. It's not as if the commenter's money would magically go to Meta if they did not give it to the book's author instead.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- the__alchemist 6mo agoDone
- qnleigh 6mo agoAlso 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 6mo agoOr just delete your Instagram account. Really, it’s easier than you think it is. You might find you don’t even miss it.
- ryandrake 6mo agoUnlike 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 6mo agoThe 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.
- Noaidi 6mo 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/ 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.
- ben_w 6mo agoUnfortunately, no hosts file on iOS, and it isn't reliably listened to on macOS. But with all the other stuff Apple's doing, I suspect my next machines won't be Apple…
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
- ddtaylor 6mo agoIt'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 6mo agoBought 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.
- rectang 6mo agoI'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 6mo agoIts 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.
- _heimdall 6mo agoJust 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 6mo agoThe fuck are you arguing here? Should they not buy the book?
- vntok 6mo agoThey probably shouldn't indeed, if one is to believe some of the comments here. > read the book and honestly the author is just as crazy as the rest of the executive team she skewers
- _heimdall 6mo agoThe fuck I'm not arguing anything. I'm only pointing out that buying the book only to support the author likely isn't as impactful as it could seem, especially if the idea is to give the middle finger to large corps like amazon.
- whynotminot 6mo agoBought 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 6mo ago> Screw Meta and their anti-human business model. Let’s not forget they’re also behind all this age verification BS.
- ndesaulniers 6mo agoIt was a page turner. I recommend it.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- chamomeal 6mo agoI 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 6mo agoAh, 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 6mo agoAnd 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.
- malfist 6mo agoWell 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 6mo agoFree speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoThere's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.
- FpUser 6mo agoIn a normal society courts should be protecting from signing away basic freedoms
- ceejayoz 6mo 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.
- vr46 6mo agoPublic interest argument is strong here
- Invictus0 6mo agoshe agreed to it to get a severance payment
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThat should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such an agreement heavily limited.
- thejazzman 6mo ago“Sign this or starve” isn’t much of a stretch when you think about it
- 0x3f 6mo agoAs if Meta employees live on the cusp of starving.
- ceejayoz 6mo agohttps://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-facebook-to-pay-52-million-to-content-moderators-with-ptsd https://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-faceb... > Some of the content moderators were earning $28,800 a year, the technology news site The Verge found last year. In this particular case, the legal costs are probably pretty ruinous.
- lucasay 6mo agonon-disparagement clauses doing a lot of heavy lifting here
- grokcodec 6mo 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 6mo agoMuch 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.
- simpaticoder 6mo agoI 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.
- elmomle 6mo agoIt has been discussed for generations, but unsurprisingly the people with the megaphones don't tend to promote that angle. https://inist.org/library/1982-03-21.Illich.Silence%20is%20a%20Commons.pdf https://inist.org/library/1982-03-21.Illich.Silence%20is%20a...
- normie3000 6mo ago> when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world That sure is an impressive ping!
- ryandrake 6mo agoThe 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.
- surprisetalk 6mo agoThis 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.
- 0x3f 6mo agoI'm not sure these are functionally any different. Perhaps not caring is required to achieve certain goals.
- truegoric 6mo agoWhy injustice being a zero-sum game would make it easier to bear?
- simpaticoder 6mo agoBecause 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.
- bluefirebrand 6mo ago> Because at least someone benefits Arguably this makes it worse, not better
- rectang 6mo agoIndeed, that's why "salting the earth" is an age-old military tactic. "If I can't have it, then neither can you." But I can also see why someone might wish for there to be a reason behind suffering.
- malfist 6mo agoNot op but because there's a reason for injustice. It's not just chaos for choas's sake
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoA 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.
- RIMR 6mo agoI 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.
- SauntSolaire 6mo agoWhat's the need for a non-disparagement clause then? If they're a current employee, you have their continued employment as leverage.
- jeffbee 6mo agoThe 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.
- cmiles74 6mo agoI'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.
- renewiltord 6mo agoThis 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-back-against-shark-attack-misinformation 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 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.
- LightBug1 6mo ago[flagged]
- garethsprice 6mo agoOrdered 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 6mo agoHaving 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 6mo agoI 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 6mo agoBy allowing powerful adults to act this way, we are in a sense teaching our children to act this way too.
- ElProlactin 6mo agoGetting 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.
- scrubs 6mo agoAmerica doesn't own greed. Hardly. But like the movie American Psycho the American presentation of greed is starkly in your face ... it's something horrifying to see
- zoklet-enjoyer 6mo agoIt's great that she spoke out, but she was complicit in all of this too. https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/ https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-fac...
- fwipsy 6mo agoThe 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 6mo agoMy 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.
- RIMR 6mo agoIt 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.
- jeffbee 6mo agoThat's a ridiculous constraint to put on the freedom to enter into contracts.
- Avicebron 6mo agoSo allowing someone to sign themselves into slavery should be "legal" because it's "impinging on someone's right to enter contracts"? I get that some people balk at "morally reprehensible" as some sort of slippery slope, but c'mon we as individuals have to function somewhat coherently. As a social species reliant on some form of social cohesion (how much oil did you refine this morning?) we have to have some guidelines.
- jonahx 6mo agoFwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a stretch. The situation up for debate is: Should you be able to voluntarily accept money in exchange for promising not to say bad things about someone or some company? I don't see a good faith interpretation of that as "signing yourself into slavery".
- jamiequint 6mo ago[flagged]
- wkat4242 6mo agohttps://archive.is/DmiOw https://archive.is/DmiOw
- fwipsy 6mo agoHow the hell did Zuck run Facebook for so long without learning about the Streisand effect?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThe 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 6mo agoBecause 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.
- liendolucas 6mo agoThe 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.
- zeroonetwothree 6mo agoI too love to read books that reinforce my existing beliefs. Although I’m starting to think it’s less educational than the opposite :)
- mrb00k 6mo ago[dead]
- blitzar 6mo agoAcross America, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.
- AugustoCAS 6mo agoThis 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.
- mil22 6mo agoYes. 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 6mo agoCareless indeed. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are complicit in the Rohingya genocide https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
- williamDafoe 6mo agoThese 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 6mo 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-expose-author-sarah-wynn-williams-faces-bankruptcy-after-ban-on-criticising-company https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expo... [2]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
- mil22 6mo agoIt'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 6mo agoA 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-the-world%3F-trump%2C-tech-and-the-fight-for-the-future https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/live-special%3A-who-rules-... [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mz5f https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mz5f
- thisisrida 6mo agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20260222004907/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/sarah-wynn-williams-careless-people-meta-nrffdfpmf https://web.archive.org/web/20260222004907/https://www.theti...
- ChrisMarshallNY 6mo agoMs. 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."
- dmschulman 6mo agoIt'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.
- bena 6mo agoShe didn’t leave, she was fired. A significant difference.
- sillyfluke 6mo agoIf 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.
- dmschulman 6mo agoHey now, I'm still reading the booK!
- paganel 6mo 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 6mo agoWell I know what I’m reading tonight.
- bicepjai 6mo agoStreisand effect. I didn’t care about the book but I will have listened to this book by this weekend.
- b00ty4breakfast 6mo agoAre 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 6mo agoNo one said they were surprised. It's good to get documentation.
- newscracker 6mo 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 6mo agoHow great it is to write an expose after already making millions there...
- CalChris 6mo agoWell, $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 6mo agoIt's $50,000 per statement
- shevy-java 6mo agoThere 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 6mo agoI'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 6mo agoThis is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading. She was extremely fair to Facebook executives.
- threethirtytwo 6mo agoWait you can legally ban someone from saying negative things? How does this work with the first amendment?
- delbronski 6mo agoMoney. You can break any rule with money.
- thyrsus 6mo agoThe 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.
- djoldman 6mo ago[dead]
- dang 6mo agoRelated. 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44757228 - Aug 2025 (2 comments) Careless People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43780363 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 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 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 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473 - March 2025 (108 comments)
- zeroonetwothree 6mo agoShe’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.
- orochimaaru 6mo agoI 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 6mo ago100%. 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.
- zeroonetwothree 6mo agoYou don’t think private contracts should be enforceable in other countries? I don’t that would make for a great world to live in.
- orochimaaru 6mo agoThe 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.
- prepend 6mo agoI 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.
- throwanem 6mo agoShe 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 6mo agoWould be really cool if that book made its way to Youtube. Immortalize it.
- tim333 6mo agoSeems fairly immortal already, the book. It's the author who's having problems.
- jedberg 6mo agoMy 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.
- mnmnmn 6mo ago[dead]
- overrun11 6mo ago[flagged]
- gnarlouse 6mo agoThis shark story the book opens with seems... implausibly Hollywood. But alright I guess.
- Nevermark 6mo agoCan 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!
- lokinorkle 6mo ago[flagged]
- alex1138 6mo agoYeah so if you need any info on people at Harvard just ask https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122
- ordu 6mo agoHow 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?
- alex1138 6mo agoI 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 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 6mo agoHow 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?
- sethops1 6mo agoWhy are you disparaging something you admit to knowing nothing about? Read the book or keep your opinion to yourself.
- zx8080 6mo agoIs it some specific kind of masochism to still use FB? Why do people trust their digital lifes and private and personal messages to Meta?
- BLACKCRAB 6mo ago[dead]
- aimemobe 6mo ago[flagged]