San Francisco Frontiers - Meta strives to stifle ex-employee memoir

In "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism", Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.

Her book includes claims of sexual harassment by Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta's international affairs team early this year.

She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative China market by appeasing government censors in that country.

"The suggestion was that as part of the negotiations for the company to enter into China, the data of users in Hong Kong could be put in play," Wynn-Williams said in an interview with NPR.

An idea was to flag content in Hong Kong or Taiwan that went "viral" and refer it to a censorship body for review, according to Wynn-Williams.

"It's no secret we were interested in China; we explore lots of ideas," Meta communications director Andy Stone said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"You know what didn't happen? We didn't start offering our services in China."

Meta took its opposition to the memoir to arbitration, contending that it violates a non-disparagement contract Wynn-Williams signed when she worked with the tech company's global affairs team.

- Talk nice -

An arbitration court this week granted Meta's request to bar Wynn-Williams from promoting her book, sending the dispute to private negotiations about settling the case.

"This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams' false and defamatory book should never have been published," Stone said on X.

Wynn-Williams was "fired for poor performance and toxic behavior," having made a series of unfounded allegations that the company investigated, Stone said in an X post.

The order by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution does stop the publisher from distributing copies of the memoir released on Tuesday.

Emergency Arbitrator Nicholas Gowan noted that Wynn-Williams did not appear for a hearing held prior to the ruling.

The order bars Wynn-Williams from further promoting her book or making derogatory remarks about Meta, and from promoting her book.

And Wynn-Williams must retract previous critical comments about Meta or its executives, the ruling states.

Gowan noted that the ruling did not address the merits of the case.

Neither Wynn-Williams nor her publisher responded to requests for comment.

Meta's access to data of billions of users around the world makes it a target for investigations and accusations, from a Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 to revelations in 2021 by a whistleblower that it put profit over the well-being of users.

Recently, Meta has been criticized for stepping back from workplace diversity efforts and from battling misinformation in an apparent alignment with Trump.

Meta early this year announced it was replacing its fact-checking program, of which AFP was a part, with "community notes".

A.Smith--SFF