Meta puts stop on promotion of tell-all book by former employee | Hacker News Reader

Meta puts stop on promotion of tell-all book by former employee

theguardian.com

185 pointsj_maffe88 comments

The author still managed to give at least one interview before the arbitrator's decision.

For example,

https://www.thefp.com/p/meet-sarah-wynn-williams-facebooks

Meta published a response to the book that only alleges the author's claims are "old" and does not suggest they are false.

https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Sarah-Wynn-W...

If the claims are false and defamatory, then why not sue the author for defamation.

In the book, the author suggests she was harassed by two famous Facebook managers and then terminated when she complained.

Apparently the book is a top seller on Amazon. Perhaps it does not need promotion by the author.

The author has also filed a whistleblower complaint at the SEC re: the China issue.

As a longtime HN reader I recall that Zuckerberg was a favorite of PG. The "ideal founder" or something like that.

Well, that settles it - I'll have to buy a copy and give it a read.

Hey Mark, want people to not read it? How about you go donate a few hundred billion to the country and communities that supported you and your company from day 1, instead of avoiding taxation and building a doomsday bunker in New Zealand.

> Well, that settles it - I'll have to buy a copy and give it a read.

Honestly, I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be any different than all of the other “explosive tell-all memoirs” of the past. These books usually play into people’s desire to believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Then you read the book and realize that the author is trying really hard to paint themselves as an outsider despite being suspiciously involved with the people you’re supposed to dislike.

I suspect this lawsuit was predicted and possibly welcomed for the publicity. It’s amazing how many people are rushing to give this person money because they think it will hurt Meta, even though they’ll probably roll their eyes at gossipy memoir books like this. At least take a few seconds to watch the interviews with the author to realize what type of person you’re aligning with. If you’re expecting an anti-Zuckerberg hero you’re probably going to be disappointed when you realize you’ve been tricked into giving money and attention to another person who was gunning for the executive ranks of Meta using the same tricks and behaviors as everyone else.

That's all true but doesn't mean Meta should be able to quash the publishing and doesn't invalidate them wanting to buy the book to push back against corporate control of criticism.

>Honestly, I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be any different than all of the other “explosive tell-all memoirs” of the past. These books usually play into people’s desire to believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Then you read the book and realize that the author is trying really hard to paint themselves as an outsider despite being suspiciously involved with the people you’re supposed to dislike.

Great point. You're probably spot-on.

Aye, very valid indeed, but you need to go into it aware of the author's biases and read on the basis of that. Doesn't stop a book being (vaguely) true, and certainly doesn't get in the way of enjoyment. Another good example here is the fantastic All the Worst Humans by Phil Elwood[0], can't think of a more unreliable narrator than a PR guy.

I picked Careless People up the other day and it's a hoot. All the very valid caveats aside, it's well worth a read. The author was deeply involved in their international diplomacy, and the stories about FB interacting with governments are _wild_, even with a pinch of salt. Loving it so far.

[^0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/03/all-th...

Spent a lot of this evening reading this book and hoot turned to horror.

I feel the need to scrub every shred of Meta from my existence.

Ehh, I'll take more knowledge and accounts on the inside, even if the reporter themselves gleefully implemented them with no regrets. I'm not trying to find heroes, I just want to seek the truth. Tit for tat in my eyes, no altruistic party here.

I too am going to buy one and read, but genuinely curious what made you support Mark in the beginning of Facebook? Wasn’t he always known as a douchebag even in his university days?

I used Facebook back in 2005. I was in high school, it was cool.

In 2006, my friend (who went to Temple in Scarsdale, NY with the Zuckerberg family) told me in no uncertain terms that Mark was easily the biggest egotistical asshole he'd ever met - a highly intelligent but deeply unethical jerk and overall not a good person. I stopped using Facebook then and there.

I then found out that the Winklevoss twins were involved. I'm from their hometown. They are not good people. I haven't touched a Meta/FB product since then save for WhatsApp. My business has an IG page but I don't touch it.

In all seriousness (aside from all the comments stating they'd ordered it. Hey, I just did myself), it's interesting seeing Meta go after the employee but seemingly not make much of an effort to go after the publisher.

What would they hope to gain going after any of it so late anyway? Surely if their goal is to dissuade others from publishing tell-alls, the resulting publicity from their suits against this one would do the opposite? If they really wanted to stop the book, they should've gone after it early before publication, but it seems like they dropped the ball and are doing more damage to themselves trying to catch up.

Publishers have high priced lawyers on retainer (who will copy and paste the same winning brief they have served anytime they have been challenged before) - individuals are resource constrained.

I suspect the actual issue is that the publisher is not a party to whatever contract there exists between the author and Meta.

Unfortunately for free speech, it is no longer the case (if it ever was) that publishers have strong financial resources compared to an increasing number of those who want to hide things.

You don't need an expensive lawyer to point out that the publisher is not covered by the arbitration agreement, a cheap one will do.

The bullying is not possible because the argument made is weaker, bullying is possible because the argument is made by a party with fewer resources.

Bingo. Authors are easier to bully into submission.

They are defending the author in this case though. Im sure they bully authors plenty too, but I'm pretty sure they keep some around for allegations of libel and other complications where they have the authors back.

> it's interesting seeing Meta go after the employee but seemingly not make much of an effort to go after the publisher.

Why? As The Fine Article points out, the publisher wasn't party to the agreement they're trying to enforce.

Exactly. The employee entered into an agreement with Meta, then broke the contractual agreement with this book.

This is the purpose of those agreements.

Meta has no such agreement with the publisher.

You can argue about the merits of such agreement separately, but there isn’t any mystery in this situation. Employee entered into an agreement with Meta and then broke the agreement. Meta is pursuing the terms of the agreement.

Facebook got a Interim award. The former employee was not present at the emergency arbitration hearing.

https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-...

Seems like she, personally, has been spared the need to go out and promote the book, the only thing Facebook seems to have gotten out of the arbitration. In return they provided far more promotion than her appearing on podcasts would have done.

IANAL, and would really like to read some legal commentary of what Facebook thought they were going to achieve. As far as I can tell they have a pretty hollow victory. Even if they were somehow able to stop her from receiving royalties, it seems like Macmillan could pay her sideway with a contract and advance on her next book, her story of Facebook trying to silence her. Once again, IANAL, desperately want to read multi page thoughts from one on the Facebook strategy.

Yes, I bought the book and am enjoying it immensely. It has a nice fun irreverent sense of humor.

Contracts only bind the people who are party to them, so they couldn't go after the publisher on the same grounds. And there is a lot of case law around suing publishers so they probably know they would lose a lawsuit on other grounds (and maybe get an anti-slap ruling against them which could cost a lot of money).

One thing I don't understand though is I thought arbitration could only award monetary relief? I didn't realize that they could issue injunctions like this which I thought constituted an equitable remedy.

Maybe they want to see the Streisand Effect in action?

> seemingly not make much of an effort to go after the publisher.

That's a much, much harder case to make. Wynn-Williams can be reasonably held to be bound by the terms of her severance agreement and whatever NDA was part of it. The publisher is allowed to print whatever they want as long as they don't knowingly defame someone.

What might happen in the longer term is Meta suing the author (this case here is just an arbitration ruling) for proceeds from the book sales. NDAs have a hard time constraining speech, but they can absolutely constrain your ability to make money from speech. But again that's going to depend on the specific contract.

In my mind its one of those events that is hard to know the exact motives. Could be as simple as enforcing the standard of their contracts or as extreme as actual retribution.

Why consume resources? Retribution.

That simply fits your desire/narrative. There is no way to know without being an insider.

I'm almost 50 years old. I know how shit works.

Yeah, even if the author wanted to, I doubt they could pull it back at this point.

The publisher is rushing a new cover with “The book Facebook doesn’t want you to read.” in huge letters, I imagine.

On amazon.de the product title is "Careless People: The explosive memoir that Meta doesn't want you to read" but the book cover hasn't been changed yet.

I think it’s naive to believe both the author and the publisher didn’t plan for this to happen.

The publisher loves this because they get the publicity and they aren’t the target of the broken contract dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

I worked at Facebook and the amount of ex-FBers, especially OGs, speaking out against them on LinkedIn is staggering. I’ve debated doing a livestream of reading this book from start to finish, perhaps even in one sitting, because of what is happening here.

If you do, please post a link here! The book is still backordered on bookshop.org.

Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473

Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her book about Facebook (engadget.com)

285 points by SanjayMehta 4 days ago | 105 comments

I just ordered it on my Kobo. If not for Zuck's tantrum, there's almost no chance I would have read it.

Just got an audiobook from Kindle. This legal development pushed me over the edge of curiosity. Very interesting.

If they yowl so loudly, it must have hit a nerve.

Sidenote: Is there a way to read my legally purchased Kobo book without downloading Adobe on my linux laptop?

Assuming these are adobe digital edition (.ascm files), you can remove the DRM with calibre and the DeDRM plugin. You'll need the adobe key from an authorized machine first (a windows VM should work) and then copy the key over to the Linux install of calibre. This is what I do on my Linux machine

https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

It's unsurprising that Meta would bring a legal case against someone who used to be their global director for public policy when that person signed a non-disparagement agreement. I also find it hard to think it was that bad if she stayed for seven years, but I don't have a strong opinion about the whole thing.

This is aside from the story but it's weird how obvious it is that a PR company was hired to blitz this book, and there's been a drip of stories over the last week playing it up in various outlets with the hope that people will say "well that settles it, I'll have to buy the book! That will show Meta!"

But its funny and a little bizarre that many comments over the last week say exactly that. It just feels too easy. But they're not getting some wily one-up on Meta (buying the book changes nothing, their own opinion is probably long settled), some PR firm is getting its job done.

same thing/topic from 4 days ago with more people saying "I wasn't going to buy the book, but now I am": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473

I bought this book immediately after the last post here on HN about it. Good read so far!

I should be getting my physical copy on Tuesday. Physical so that Bezos can't have it edited or deleted from my Kindle.

Good job, Zuck! I didn't even know this book existed, and likely wouldn't have cared, until you decided to drop the hammer on her.

I wish I could highlight your comment more -- the paper copy is more valuable for this reason.

A strong chilling effect by going after the author directly - no late night talk shows, podcasts, etc.

My plan if I was at Macmillan? Send out the book’s Editor on tour, on the double. At this level, the Editor is well qualified to speak to the contents and integrity of the work.

As they’re not bound by this ruling, it can be a useful talking point about the merit of the book - “I wouldn’t be here if Meta wasn’t embarrassed by the truth” has a nice ring to it.

The Streisand Effect - best marketing plan ever !!!!. The book is already in the Amazon best seller list.

Meanwhile, "Chaos Monkeys" is still in publication and is a pretty open talk on the early days of Facebook.

I can't escape the notion that either they didn't have their earlier employees sign quite so binding agreements or the company had some incentive not to sue that man.

Or they just didn't bother at the time.

The author of Chaos Monkeys was hired by Facebook in 2011, the same year as the author of Careless People.

Facebook launched in 2004, so in both cases it isn't exactly "early days" of the company, especially compared to The Accidental Billionaires (which The Social Network film was based on).

Bought this on Spotify. Thanks Zuck for bringing it to my attention.

A gag order on a book?

Seems like it’s just preventing the author from promoting it due to some provision of a severance agreement.

Doesn’t seem to actually prevent publication.

Seems like Meta would rather promote it themselves

Reminds me of watching The Social Network after hearing that Zuckerberg's "feelings were hurt" by the portrayal of him.

...Streisand effect about to hit.

I got the book from Apple Books. Downloaded and backed it up. I do not read books that much, but would love to finish this one.

“I was on a private jet with Mark the day he finally understood that Facebook probably did put Donald Trump in the White House, and came to his own dark conclusions from that. But most days, working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them.”

Excerpt From Careless People Sarah Wynn-Williams

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

If the employee entered into a legal contract that limits their speech, then they, of course, should face consequences if they breach said contract. Such contracts may be crap, Facebook may be horrible, Zuck may be whatever C word you think rhymes with his name, but a contract should be kept.

Per some of the discussion in earlier thread related to this, I don't know what NDA/severance agreement provisions were violated in the writing of this book. I do know that absent some compelling public interest, I'd let bygones be bygones and maybe just something to tell friends over drinks. I wouldn't have anything particularly interesting to dish about any former employer that the public would care about. I have some historical knowledge--not all of which I can technically fully share--and am pretty circumspect about doing so. But nothing here is whistleblowing as far as I'm aware.

That is bullshit. With that kind of thinking there would never be a whistleblower or political scandal. Everything can be swept under the carpet because someone signed an NDA.

This is one of those gossipy, salacious memoirs. It’s not an explosive political revelation or a whistleblowing mission.

This person is publishing a book for fame and money. The only reason it’s being interpreted as a noble act is because it appeals to people who dislike Facebook, but even those people are missing the obvious problem that the only reason she can write this memoir is because she was deeply involved with creating and running the company they dislike.

Writing a book is not the same as being a whistleblower[1] so whistleblower protection would not apply here.

[1]: https://www.dol.gov/general/topics/whistleblower

your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries

So long as you don't say my mother was a man or my father was a woman, free speech absolutists applaud your statement and sentiment.

Eh, you can initiate legal proceedings for anything and it's doubtless inconvenient (and expensive) to be on the receiving end from a company doing so. It's also nothing especially new.

I hope the "free speech absolutists" in positions of power are able to reclaim some of these retreating powers.

This is the best advertisement of the book. I wasn’t even aware of the title until now.

Is this book "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism" by Sarah Wynn-Williams?

If someone can confirm this, then I'll make sure to tell everyone to avoid it.

Cool! Buying it on Barnes & Noble now. Hadn't heard of it.

Well I’m certainly going to be reading it now.

It's no surprise they'd want to silence that kind of negative PR. The tech industry can be pretty cutthroat.

Best promotion the book coukd get IMO

Waiting on The Social Network pt. 2

The producers are waiting for Zuck to get attacked by a mob, go out of business, or end up in prison first. They are hoping for all three.

Of all of em Zuck seems to be at highest risk of some wildcard stuff happening. Unless musk or bezos personally get on rocket.

I don't wish ill of anyone ofc but with his forays into extreme forms of recreation and aviation and such there's a chance of a different surprise story.

“The Anti-Social Network”

They just Streisanded themselves.

Free speech for me, not for thee.

I hope they make a movie out of it.

From a screenwriter perspective this would be an uphill battle - the risk of a studio / production company facing legal retaliation by social media enterprises would be financially unwise. In the US making money is the goal of cinema, art is a distant second.

> A Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, said in a post on Threads: “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published”.

... this doesn't seem like an accurate statement and it seems like bad journalism for the Guardian to quote it without clarifying? Stopping the former employee from promoting the book does not on its own make a claim that the contents are false or defamatory.

If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.

https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/04/11/filipovics-dilemma-...

Side note: this is Carl Sandburg's 1936 version of the popular quote. Other versions, including one from 1934, improve on the adage with a threefold repetition of "pound" or "hammer" that contrasts two different senses of the word, e.g. "If you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, hammer the table."

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/

Was this just "manually" removed from the most trending on Hacker News?

No, HN is very algorithmic. Stories get demoted if the comment or voting pattern triggers certain patterns that are associated with low quality discussion or I believe if enough users flag it.

I think people are just tired of seeing this obvious book promotion story get reposted multiple times per day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com