Meta blocks promotion of tell-all book from former employee

[midian182]

What just happened? The first step in Meta's attempts to have a tell-all book by a former employee blocked has succeeded. An arbitrator has decided in favor of the company, ruling that Sarah Wynn-Williams is prohibited from promoting Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.

Wynn-Williams' book includes several damning revelations and allegations against Meta. There are further details about the concessions the company offered to the Chinese government in the hope of launching a censored version of the platform in the country. The book also includes claims of sexual harassment by chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan while he was a vice president for global public policy and Wynn-Williams' boss. Further allegations include Facebook ignoring internal warnings about its potential damage to human rights and democracy.

The book also alleges that Chinese president Xi Jinping once used a human wall of security personnel to block any potential eye contact between himself and Mark Zuckerberg.

Yesterday, Meta won an emergency arbitration ruling to temporarily stop promotion of the book. The arbitrator, Nicholas Gowen, said Meta would suffer "immediate and irreparable loss" in the absence of emergency relief.

Sarah Wynn-Williams pictured with Mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan

Gowen said that Wynn-Williams must stop making disparaging, critical, or otherwise detrimental remarks against Meta and its employees and retract all such previous comments from all forums, including online, where they appear – to the extent she can control.

Furthermore, Wynn-Williams cannot promote the book via a book tour or other means, or further publish or distribute it. Again, the order comes with the "to the extent she can control" caveat.

Meta alleges that Wynn-Williams violated the non-disparagement terms of her September 2017 severance agreement. Book publisher Macmillan argues it was not bound by this agreement.

It's unclear if the arbitrator can stop the book from being published. It remains on sale at retailers such as Amazon, where it is the number one best-seller in its category.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the ruling confirms that Wynn-Williams' "false and defamatory book" should never have been published.

"This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry's standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years," Stone said.

Meta previously said that Wynn-Williams' comments were out-of-date and that she was fired in 2017 for poor performance and toxic behavior. The international lawyer and a former New Zealand diplomat joined Facebook in 2011 and eventually became its director of global public policy.

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Meta blocks promotion of tell-all book from former employee

 

[AnilD]

Meta out here proving the book’s point before anyone even reads it.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Surprise, surprise Mark Zuckerberg is concerned more dirty details about him and his company would come to light....all we need is a single copy of that book for someone to put it online for everyone else to read.

 

[nnguy2]

So much for Meta and Zuckerberg stance on free speech. They should just leave the fact checking up to the community, like their policy.

 

[pnntmp]

Without Meta trying to block the book, it would have probably gone unnoticed.

What Meta actually did was to organize an advertising campaign for the book. Now at least an order of magnitude more people will read it. Pretty stupid, unless they actually wanted the book out.

 

[stewi0001]

Meta has shot themselves in the foot by trying to stop it. People will now be more likely wanting to read it.

 

[brucek]

In the US I've rarely heard of a court blocking publication of a book or an author's promotion of a book. In fact Googling prior restraint just now I see that "In the U.S., prior restraint of speech (censoring speech before it occurs) is generally disfavored and considered unconstitutional, but it can be allowed in limited, exceptional circumstances" (none of which sound like this.)

So where did the arbitrator get this unconstitutional power? And what means if any are at his disposal to enforce it?

 

[hwertz]

Welp, congratulations, Meta, you acted all greasy trying to block someone's free speech rights. And in return you've gotten full Streisand Effect going for this book now. She can't promote it, but it's being WELL promoted now.

 

[mjuice7]

Couldn't someone just go to libgen.is & download a copy? after all that's what meta or faecesbook did by downloading via torrent a 37 TB trove of books to train their AI claiming that their piracy is covered under fair use.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Welp, congratulations, Meta, you acted all greasy trying to block someone's free speech rights. And in return you've gotten full Streisand Effect going for this book now. She can't promote it, but it's being WELL promoted now.

In this case, the arbitrator has temporarily halted its promotion and distribution due to alleged violations of her severance agreement with Meta. The book is still available for purchase, but Wynn-Williams is restricted from promoting it because she got paid a severance when she left and in that agreement, she was not to disclose information on Meta.

She had a critical role at Meta, The Director of Public Policy where she likely had a contract and a non disclosure before she took that role.

This has nothing to do with free speech or her right to a book deal.

 

[billc]

Meta has shot themselves in the foot by trying to stop it. People will now be more likely wanting to read it.

And the BBC just put out a half hour program about it!
She also pointed out that none of Meta's staff allow their children to use it; and in fact many parents in SF won't even allow their kids to use a smart phone - it drives them crazy, but they will be thankful when they get older.