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Facebook’s parent company has successfully blocked the promotion and future publishing of ‘Careless People’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a tell-all book about working for Zuckerberg.
This past Wednesday, Meta won an emergency arbitration ruling to temporarily stop the promotion of ‘Careless People’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams.
The book is a ‘tell-all’ style shakedown of the company from Sarah herself, a previous employee who worked as a director of global public policy for Meta. Reviews have been very positive, with the New York Times calling it an ‘ugly, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world.’
‘Careless People’ takes aim at Mark Zuckerberg, former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, among others, alleging bad behaviour and a cosying up to authoritarian regimes.
The emergency arbitration is supposedly due to Meta potentially suffering ‘immediate and irreparable loss’ in the wake of the book’s release, the ruling concluded. Sarah is not to promote the book or continue publishing it in future, though no action has been ordered toward the publisher Macmillan.
Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said via Threads that the ruling ‘affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.’ In a recent news article, The Guardian said neither Sarah nor Macmillan responded to a comment request.
Of course, despite the ruling, the book is still available for sale. If anything, the fact Meta doesn’t want people to read it will only fuel the curiosities of consumers.
The tagline on Amazon’s product page currently reads: ‘Careless People: The explosive memoir that Meta don’t want you to read.’ It also sits at #1 Best Seller in the Computer Science book category and #4 on Amazon’s overall Best Seller list.
The book controversy comes as Meta bows to the pressures of the Trump Administration, pulling back its diversity quotas and removing fact-checking services that had been a staple on the platform for years.
Zuckerberg himself appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast recently and pedalled a newfound enthusiasm for ‘free speech,’ echoing sentiments shared by top Republicans and the White House. The irony of blocking Sarah’s book after making such comments is evidently lost on the tech mogul.
