9 ms·

Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers

• jurschreuder 3mo ago
  [dead]
• jjgreen 3mo 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 3mo 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.
    • hedora 3mo ago
      Do you have a concrete suggestion that is better in some way?
    • tetris11 3mo 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.
      • JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
        The point is a guillotine somewhere else is good. Guillotines at home don’t particularly hurt the rich as a class. (It’s debated whether France’s elite actually consolidated wealth and power through its revolutions.)
        • dagenleg 3mo ago
          Not the best success story, granted, but socialist revolutions in China and Russian Empire had definitely hurt the rich as a class. Definitively even.
          • JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
            > socialist revolutions in China and Russian Empire had definitely hurt the rich Communist revolutions hurt the rich. As you say, they sowed the seeds of a new oppression. (It’s difficult to see how one could avoid that. If you put a group of people in charge of choosing who to execute and what property to take and give to whom, you’re going to have a tough time clawing that power back.) Broadly speaking, people angling for violent revolution in America are idiots. The rich ones who count on winding up on top take for granted the quality of their lives in a democracy. The ones who aren’t billionaires, broadly, are historically illiterate about the direction wealth concentration flows amidst violence.
        • microgpt 3mo ago
          Healthcare denials plummeted for a few months after that CEO died
          • JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
            > Healthcare denials plummeted for a few months after that CEO died Source? I’ve seen this claim, but it doesn’t appear in any aggregate statistics from what I can tell. Also, middle manager with a “CEO” title. The billionaire who owns the group is fine.
      • sterlind 3mo ago
        "A riot is the language of the unheard." ~ MLK Jr.
    • gilrain 3mo 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.
      • mananaysiempre 3mo ago
        The phrase about omelette and eggs (or rather its direct counterpart, about timber and chips) ended up as the unofficial primary justification for Stalin’s Great Purge, so the point about strange bedfellows stands. Twentieth-century Russia is in general a good example of what happens when you systematically eradicate the country’s elites, regardless of how unfairly they have gotten into the position or how miserable everybody else is. The broader point, dating back to at least the French Revolution, is that once you establish the precedent that killing opponents is a way to win, it only takes a decade or two before the most ruthless killers become the winners. All proxy metrics are bad, including electability, but this one is especially awful. I’m more puzzled by why some violent movements do seem to have had some success than by why most didn’t.
      • SpicyLemonZest 3mo ago
        You generally don't get to choose how few eggs you'd like to break. As Olympe de Gouges found during the French Revolution, revolutions tend to be run by people who enjoy the process of breaking eggs, and if you call for it to stop they may decide that you are an egg who needs breaking.
        • Ifkaluva 3mo ago
          Reminds me of Thucydides describing some of the civil wars that erupted in various cities in the wake of the Pelopponesian war. He says that when order breaks down, thoughtful moderates are treated as weak cowards, and that simple-minded but aggressive people make the first move and kill off thoughtful people who think they will be able to make compelling arguments.
    • Waterluvian 3mo 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.
      • loeg 3mo ago
        Where are you seeing billionaires not supporting the rule of law (and Zuckerberg in particular)?
        • microgpt 3mo ago
          Every time they don't arrest the pedophile in chief, for example?
    • jjgreen 3mo ago
      I'd be a happy tricoteur
• nullbio 3mo ago
  People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me". Dumb fucks.
  • username135 3mo ago
    ^
  • alex1138 3mo 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"
    • nullbio 3mo 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!
    • menloshark 3mo ago
      If you like him so much, you should go work for him. Then call us back
      • alex1138 3mo ago
        What? Sorry, how much more sarcasm should I have in one post? It's clear that I don't like what he did And sometimes I outright wasn't being sarcastic. But my point was some people say "he was right for saying that". But you don't hear that from literally anyone else. Google doesn't say it. Banks don't say it. The minimum threshold as I said in my comment was "I'll defend personal info" even if you think people theoretically shouldn't give it a way. But Zuck for example has been known to password scrape The whole comment was about me not liking him
• LightBug1 3mo 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 3mo ago
    Money is power. Power corrupts.
    • smt88 3mo 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.
      • deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
      • deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
    • raverbashing 3mo ago
      I don't think it's fair to blame money in this case
    • yard2010 3mo 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.
  • smt88 3mo 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.
• bhickey 3mo 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?
  • alex1138 3mo ago
    And now head of global policy at Metabook
  • KaiserPro 3mo ago
    > The same Joel Kaplan who was involved in a coup? which coup, you're gonna have to be more specific
    • rjsw 3mo ago
      This [1] one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
    • alex1138 3mo ago
      Brooks Brothers demonstration for the 2000 election
  • joquarky 3mo ago
    That is one of those events that makes me dislike the many worlds interpretation.
• datakan 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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.
      • ryandrake 3mo ago
        Not just Silicon Valley, although SV is definitely the poster child for this mentality. It’s a problem all over the world. Obtaining X fully justifies having X. Nobody cares about the “how.”
        • bwfan123 3mo ago
          > Nobody cares about the “how.” The rich man is also perceived by the lizard brain to be wise, intelligent, witty, and handsome.
        • Terr_ 3mo ago
          An aspect of the "just-world fallacy", where ultimately good things happen to good people, so if a good thing happened to you, you must have been good, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy
  • 3mo ago
• avalys 3mo 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 3mo ago
    i think the article is saying that’s what the book claims, not whether it’s true or false.
  • GlibMonkeyDeath 3mo 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?
    • avalys 3mo ago
      I’m referring to Doctorow’s credibility, not Williams.
  • potatos22 3mo 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.
• liendolucas 3mo 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.
  • mananaysiempre 3mo 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.
    • BoxFour 3mo 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.
      • mananaysiempre 3mo ago
        > Social punishment (in the form of shunning, boycotts, "cancelling", etc) has been around as long as human society has existed and is incredibly popular. True. There’s a reasonable argument[1] that such things should continue to exist. The strongest way of phrasing it, I think, is that we do not want to have to pass a law against being an arsehole, nor do we actually want the letter of such a law enforced with the full might of the state, but there still needs to be some way of punishing it. The only counterpoint here is, I think, that the severity of such punishments seems to be vastly underestimated. (If you’re going to refer to ancient societies, many of them used or accepted such a punishment as a substitute for the death penalty, as for instance with the Roman custom of permitting voluntary exile before conviction. And that still in a world where you could travel a few hundred kilometers in the right direction and reasonably expect nobody to ever learn of your sins.) Also beside the point, however. The question is not whether we should shun people (we should, with a fair few qualifications), but whether such penalties should be levied for words. I posit that no, for an overwhelming majority of words they shouldn’t, where the possible exceptions are somewhere around ongoing mass murder and the Milles Collines[2]; and that letting your opponents speak and listening to them should by default be virtuous, socially rewarded behaviour. [1] https://dynomight.net/bad/ https://dynomight.net/bad/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...
• nilirl 3mo 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 3mo ago
    It’s not legal. There is a current federal lawsuit on this exact topic.
  • grayhatter 3mo 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.
• jacobgold 3mo 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 3mo 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.
    • jacobgold 3mo 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.
      • consensus1 3mo ago
        What grounds are there to void this contract that was agreed on my both parties?
        • jacobgold 3mo ago
          We don't have all of the facts but the contract could be voided if it was signed under duress, used to hide misconduct and prevent whistleblowing, etc.
    • 999900000999 3mo 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.
• kleton 3mo 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
  • rwmj 3mo ago
    He did build a massive bunker in Hawaii though. And a second one for his wife.
• akudha 3mo 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
  • SpicyLemonZest 3mo 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.
    • rwmj 3mo ago
      If he really doesn't cheat at board games, the power move would be to completely ignore the accuser.
      • SpicyLemonZest 3mo ago
        I agree, but she also made other accusations that can't be so easily ignored. Meta can't really have no comment on someone who's going around saying that Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan both sexually harassed her on the job.
  • kylecazar 3mo ago
    This applies to Elon's incredibly strange video game cheating scandal too. It's pathetic and weird.
    • rustystump 3mo 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.
• gherkinnn 3mo 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.
• SpicyLemonZest 3mo 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.
  • ryandrake 3mo 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.
    • SpicyLemonZest 3mo 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.
      • ryandrake 3mo ago
        Given Meta’s (and their leadership’s) outward, visible, documented and repeated bad behavior, “wrongdoing” is not a complex alternative theory. It’s the simplest explanation. So sure, acknowledge that they are denying. The only thing it explains is that horrible entities tend to deny horrible behavior.
  • unknownfuture 3mo ago
    Then take her to court for libel and prove it. Facebook execs have absolutely not earned the benefit of the doubt, here.
    • SpicyLemonZest 3mo ago
• dofm 3mo 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.
  • alex1138 3mo 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 3mo 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.
      • alt227 3mo ago
        Why is everyone beating around the bush? Its Nick Clegg
        • deleted 3mo ago
          [deleted]
        • techterrier 3mo ago
          I agree its Nick
        • khurs 3mo ago
          I'm confused. What's the allegation?
• breppp 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
      Yeah I thought it was very obvious that the author was more careless and complicit than she was admitting.
• mschuster91 3mo 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-microsoft-donate-trump-inaugural-fund https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/09/google-mi...
• kgwxd 3mo 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.
  • microgpt 3mo ago
    Consequences of malice: you become extremely powerful. Seems like a good deal to me
• game_the0ry 3mo 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 3mo 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_the0ry 3mo 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_ 3mo 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/ https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/
    • game_the0ry 3mo ago
      You may have given up. I didn't.
      • Terr_ 3mo ago
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• khurs 3mo ago
  So what happened with the 11m fine that the whistleblower was asked to pay?
  • noisy_boy 3mo 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 3mo 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?
  • deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  • ben_w 3mo 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 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.
    • zeroonetwothree 3mo 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 $.
      • lovich 3mo ago
• stephc_int13 3mo 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 3mo ago
    Could it be that people actually like their work there?
    • mlrtime 3mo ago
      Your text is gray, is this irony or proving the point?
  • hn_throwaway_99 3mo 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 3mo 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.
• softwaredoug 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
      “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
• codexb 3mo 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.
  • sterlind 3mo 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 3mo ago
      > Arguably, nothing the NSA was doing was illegal. The Supreme Court disagreed; the surveillance program was illegal.
      • thayne 3mo ago
        And if they had ruled the other way, would he not have been a whistleblower?
  • laughing_man 3mo 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 3mo 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.
• Monarch909 3mo ago
  [flagged]
• charcircuit 3mo 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 3mo ago
  Here's the complaint: https://ia803204.us.archive.org/15/items/gov.uscourts.cand.472927/gov.uscourts.cand.472927.1.0.pdf 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
• teravor 3mo 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 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 3mo 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.
    • teravor 3mo 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.
  • lovich 3mo 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.
• slim 3mo 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 3mo ago
  Remember when Elon Musk introduced Mark Zuckerberg to Jeffery Epstein? The Zuck has some skeletons in his closet.
• smsm42 3mo 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 3mo ago
    Legality != morality
    • smsm42 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
  Heard the book is good. How do we know it’s true?
• CaptainZapp 3mo ago
  I just paid CHF 15.90 for the e-book version of Careless People. Congratulations Assholes!