Meta gained a authorized victory this week in opposition to Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former worker who lately printed a memoir of her time on the firm titled “Careless Folks: A Cautionary Story of Energy, Greed, and Misplaced Idealism.”
An arbitrator ruled that the corporate has made a legitimate argument that Wynn-Williams, who labored at Fb (now Meta) from 2011 to 2017, might have violated the non-disparagement settlement she signed when leaving the corporate. The ruling states that Wynn-Williams is briefly prohibited from selling — or, “to the extent inside [her] management, from additional publishing or distributing” — her e-book till personal arbitration concludes.
Nevertheless, “Careless Folks” stays out there for buy, and should actually be benefitting from the “Streisand Effect,” wherein makes an attempt to suppress data solely serve to additional publicize it. As of Sunday afternoon, “Careless Folks” was the number three bestselling book on Amazon.
Macmillan, which printed “Careless Folks” via its imprint Flatiron Books, stated in an announcement that the arbitrator’s choice “has no influence” on the writer and that it’ll “completely proceed to assist and promote” the e-book.
The writer added that it’s “appalled by Meta’s ways to silence [its] writer via the usage of a non-disparagement clause in a severance settlement.”
“To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims inside Careless Folks,” Macmillan stated. “The e-book went via a radical modifying and vetting course of, and we stay dedicated to publishing necessary books akin to this.”
“Careless Folks” provides what a New York Times reviewer described as a “darkly humorous and genuinely stunning” look inside Fb — notably its relationship with China and different governments. (Wynn-Williams’ roles at Fb included serving as director of worldwide public coverage.)
“I used to be there for seven years, and if I needed to sum it up in a sentence, I’d say that it began as a hopeful comedy and led to darkness and remorse,” Wynn-Williams wrote within the memoir.
She added, “[M]ost days, engaged on coverage at Fb was means much less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and far more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly sum of money, as they jet world wide to determine what energy has purchased and introduced them.”
Wynn-Williams additionally reportedly filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee alleging that, in its eagerness to function in China, Fb created a plan in 2015 to put in a “chief editor” who would have been capable of censor sure content material or shut down the positioning in China on behalf of the nation’s ruling social gathering.
In an announcement, a Meta spokesperson described “Careless Folks” as “a mixture of out-of-date and beforehand reported claims about [Meta] and false accusations about our executives,” and described Wynn-Williams is “an worker terminated eight years in the past for poor efficiency.”
“We don’t function our companies in China at this time,” the Meta spokesperson continued. “It’s no secret we have been as soon as occupied with doing in order a part of Fb’s effort to attach the world. This was broadly reported starting a decade in the past. We in the end opted to not undergo with the concepts we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg introduced in 2019.”
“Careless Folks” recounts uncomfortable encounters between Joel Kaplan, now Meta’s vp of worldwide public coverage, and Wynn-Williams, who claims he floor himself in opposition to her at a piece occasion, described her as “sultry,” and made “bizarre feedback” about her husband.
Meta stated it investigated Wynn-Williams’ allegations of harassment and located them “deceptive and unfounded.”
As for the corporate is solely making an attempt to silence a whistleblower’s criticism, the spokesperson stated, “Whistleblower standing protects communications to the federal government, not disgruntled activists making an attempt to promote books.”
Present and former Fb workers have additionally criticized Wynn-Williams’ memoir. Ex-staffer Mike Rognlien said he “sat subsequent to Sarah for 18 months after we each labored on the New York workplace” and claimed the e-book “has so many lies in it I wouldn’t even know the place to begin.”
Wynn-Williams mentioned Meta’s pushback in a Business Insider interview carried out earlier than the arbitration ruling, characterizing criticisms from the corporate and former coworkers as distractions. Requested about whether or not the e-book had been fact-checked, she stated, “I feel Meta’s drawback is utilizing this to not reply the questions themselves. What I’d love is for us to not fall into the distraction.”
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