How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta

I was surprised to see that Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, who has historically shied away from openly criticizing the company that made him a billionaire, endorses the book. Brooke Oberwetter, a former Facebook policy manager whose time at the company overlapped with the period Wynn-Williams writes about, also recommends it.

“I can’t fact check the whole book (and neither can anyone else), but I can say that the meetings and events I was a part of that are recounted in the book (and things that were relayed to me by others contemporaneously) are accurately represented,” she writes on LinkedIn. “Maybe more importantly, the vibe she captured is spot on. It was just all so juvenile.”

I found the article "Eight things we learned from the Facebook Papers" interesting because it exposes the technical limitations social networks face, regardless of their comms bleating on about their being technical geniuses. For example, an internal message admits, "Our ability to detect vaccine-hesitant comments is bad in English, and basically non-existent elsewhere." This was about 2020 anti-vax comments, but it likely applies to any content in less common languages, yet this issue rarely comes up in discussions about their moderation efforts.

None of this is to deny that much of what goes on in Facebook, and the like, is primarily related to money while concern for the consumers well-being is very much secondary. It seems to me, that whatever the shortcomings of specific parts of 'Careless People' it's broad message is well worth spreading.

> Ultimately, Careless People is a test for how you feel about Meta. For many, it only reaffirms the belief that the company’s leaders are ruthless, immoral capitalists. For others, it’s a hit job that bends reality to enforce a familiar narrative. I wish it challenged both sides.

As always, the author has a vested interest in promoting the book, and getting sued for spreading lies is always a sure-fire way to get attention. I have no knowledge of the actual veracity of the events in the book, but neither does anyone else, except where it goes against sworn testimony.

While I generally believe that companies like Meta would have acted ruthlessly to make money, history generally shows Meta specifically was quite ruthless. That said, I generally think poorly of people's books when they cash lucrative salaries for half a decade, only to later become critical when convenient. The author was previously a diplomat for New Zealand and the UN and the IMF (after being a law professor). She then worked as the director of public policy at Meta, and now criticizes Meta's stance on public policy for that same time period. This is clearly a high-agency individual with strong connections who worked many dream jobs already, so why she would spend years working and contributing to such an immoral place?

https://www.weforum.org/people/sarah-wynn-williams/