Meta’s criticism has hardly curbed the memoir’s popularity. Wynn-Williams’ book is getting the kind of news coverage and social media chatter that many first-time authors can only dream of, having debuted at No. 1 this month on the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction and sold well since.
‘The truth is in the book. [Readers] can make up their own minds. I stand by everything in the book.’
Sarah Wynn-Williams
“This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” Meta spokesman Dave Arnold said in a statement on Friday.
“Eight years ago, Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behaviour, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment. Since then, she has been paid by anti-Facebook activists and this is simply a continuation of that work. Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books.”
Macmillan Publishers said in a statement that it “remains steadfast in support of our author Sarah Wynn-Williams and is extremely proud to be the publisher of this profound and timely book.”
Before she was barred from promoting her book, Wynn-Williams told Business Insider that Meta was trying to “smear me and convince people not to read the book”.
American Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.Credit: Peter Rae
“People should read the book,” she said. “The truth is in the book. They can make up their own minds. I stand by everything in the book.”
Meta has faced whistleblowers before. Frances Haugen, for one, released a trove of internal research in 2021 showing that the company knew its products harmed children and spread hate speech. Wynn-William’s allegations are decidedly more intimate, one possible reason the company is waging such a fierce publicity battle.
Her memoir alleges that Kaplan called her “sultry” and grinded against her as he flaunted his dad dance moves. She says Sandberg invited her to share a bed with her on a private plane, making her uncomfortable. Meta has said the company investigated Wynn-Williams’s harassment complaints and cleared Kaplan at the time. A representative for Sandberg, who no longer works for Meta, declined to comment.
Wynn-Williams also details Zuckerberg’s awkward and reluctant attempts to cultivate relationships with world leaders, including getting “nervous and sweaty” when he met Russia’s then prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2012 and how his refusal to take meetings before noon caused diplomatic and logistical headaches.
“There is a fair amount of it that’s quite personal about Mark Zuckerberg himself and senior people, and some of the personal elements are perhaps even more unflattering than other descriptions or insider stories about Facebook,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
‘Everything I say leaks. And so it sucks, right?’
Facebook co-founder and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg
“I could see why they are trying their best to keep the book under wraps to the extent that they can.”
But more broadly, the social media giant has been growing increasingly intolerant of employee critics and leakers. Weeks after announcing in January that Meta would no longer support independent fact-checking on its sites, Zuckerberg complained to his employees about a never-ending stream of leaks plaguing the social media giant, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The Washington Post.
“Everything I say leaks. And so it sucks, right?” Zuckerberg said during the company meeting.
A month later, the company announced it had fired “roughly 20 employees” for “sharing confidential information outside the company”, Arnold said in a statement at the time.
Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, announced on March 5 that it was set to publish a “shocking” book by Wynn-Williams that would show how top Meta leaders were careless and indifferent to the impact of their decisions while they sought more and more power. Within days, Meta public relations staff were trying to get ahead of the narrative with reporters.
On March 7, Meta spokeswoman Erin Logan sent Steven Levy, a veteran journalist for the tech news site Wired, a pre-emptive warning about the soon-to-be-released book. While no one at Meta had seen the book yet, Logan told Levy in an email that Wynn-Williams had been fired and had previously made “false claims”, without specifying what those were. Logan’s attempts to discredit Wynn-Williams and her book only piqued Levy’s interest, he said in an interview.
“I was surprised by the passion with which they were going after this book, especially because they would have had to know it was going to draw my attention to the book,” said Levy, who eventually wrote a review of the book for Wired.
On March 12, an emergency arbiter – a dispute resolution option outside the court system – sided with Meta by ruling that the tech giant might reasonably convince a court that Wynn-Williams broke a non-disparagement agreement she entered as she was being fired by the company in 2017. The arbiter also said that while her publisher, Macmillan, appeared for the hearing on Meta’s motion, Wynn-Williams did not despite having received due notice. The arbiter did not make any assessments about the book’s veracity, but Meta spokespeople argued that the ruling meant “Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published”.
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Wynn-Williams last week filed an emergency motion to overturn the ruling, arguing she didn’t receive proper notice of the arbitration proceedings to the email accounts Meta knows she uses, according to a copy of the motion seen by the Post.
Wynn-Williams further alleged her severance agreement including the non-disparagement provisions is unenforceable, arguing it violates laws that protect whistleblowers from retaliation, among other points. In a statement, legal representatives for Wynn-Williams said they were “confident in the legal arguments and look forward to a swift restoration of Ms. Wynn-Williams’ right to tell her story.”
Wynn-Williams filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 contending that Meta had tried to build a censored version of Facebook for China. When The Washington Post first reported on that complaint on March 9, Meta public relations staff characterised the allegations as old. While it had been reported that Meta sought to create a censored version of Facebook for China, many new details were contained in Wynn-Williams’s complaint and supplementary documents about how the company tried to win Chinese Communist Party approval.
Later, the company published a four-page document with links to other stories about the company’s China ambitions, though it stopped short of outright rejecting many of the underlying facts contained in the SEC complaint.
Meta public relations staff have also sought to discredit Wynn-Williams as a disgruntled fired employee who is lying about her experience, making more aggressive arguments than the company made in 2021 about Haugen. Back then, the company sought to portray Haugen as a low-level employee with little tenure at the company.
Meta’s global affairs head, Joel Kaplan.Credit: AP
To counter Careless People, they have elevated comments on social media from former and current employees – some of whom they personally encouraged to post – who have challenged the accuracy of some of Wynn-Williams’ anecdotes, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Several senior women who worked with Kaplan, the global affairs head, rose to his defence, saying they didn’t have negative experiences with him, and questioning the book’s veracity. And at least one former colleague has defended Wynn-Williams’ book, saying it accurately captured her experience.
Despite the book’s rising popularity, Meta’s campaign against Wynn-Williams has persisted. After Levy pointed out on X that Meta’s “all-out war on this book will only help its sales”, he faced swift pushback from chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth.
“Except that it is full of lies, Steven. Shame on you,” Bosworth posted on X.
The Washington Post
