Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

286 pointsposted 2 hours ago
by macleginn
(thetimes.com)

195 Comments

surprisetalk

2 hours ago

This book was SO GOOD.

It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel how much harm they've caused.

Aurornis

38 minutes ago

> This book was SO GOOD.

One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it.

So while reading it, be careful about who you hold up as a hero. In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be untrustworthy narrators.

ryandrake

21 minutes ago

The fact that she did end up setting herself apart is what's remarkable. For every one of her who was able to self-reflect, become horrified of the ethics of what she was doing, and took the hard steps of stopping and breaking away, how many current and former Meta employees don't do this reflection and remain contributors to the problem? 1:100? 1:1,000? 1:10,000?

jmull

27 minutes ago

A strange response.

Rather than address the comment you change the subject, “whaddabout the author!”

Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of “Meta”?

(lol, that name gets me every time. Might as well have renamed themselves NoIdeaWhatToDoNow)

Nifty3929

3 minutes ago

Because recognizing the author as conflicted and an unreliable narrator changes how you should weight and consider the information they are providing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is untrue - but it does add extra, valuable information to how much you trust it.

If someone tells me something, I'm mostly likely to believe it without further investigation. But not always.

mykowebhn

12 minutes ago

To all future whistle-blowers: Please ignore comments like this one! What you are doing is a valuable service to society.

zaphar

30 minutes ago

There is nuance here though. Taking a step back and learning from an experience is something to be celebrated.

jancsika

20 minutes ago

You read the book. Did she have the receipts or not?

sifar

15 minutes ago

I felt it more being naive idealism in the beginning coupled with the thrill of achieving things before the realization. Yet certain things stand out like her trip to Myanmar. Why to subject oneself through that in that condition.

The title is very apt, the executives, they simply didn't care. That was a fascinating glimpse

0x3f

an hour ago

I'm not sure these are functionally any different. Perhaps not caring is required to achieve certain goals.

truegoric

an hour ago

Why injustice being a zero-sum game would make it easier to bear?

malfist

an hour ago

Not op but because there's a reason for injustice. It's not just chaos for choas's sake

simpaticoder

an hour ago

Because at least someone benefits. It's why theft is arguably better than vandalism. If you steal the thing, at least someone gets to use it. If it's vandalized, no-one does.

bluefirebrand

an hour ago

> Because at least someone benefits

Arguably this makes it worse, not better

analog8374

an hour ago

Understanding takes effort too, effort that might be better spent creating value.

Also, understanding creates culpability. So that's a downside. It's like people who walk in front of you on the road and pretend to not notice you. If I don't see the badness then I am not responsible for the badness.

And thirdly, never underestimate people's power to ignore.

gortok

2 hours ago

Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us. It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass just because they make overtures towards something we care about.

We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we teach our children to act this way, but we're perfectly willing to allow fully grown adults to act like this.

Here's just one example, there are plenty more:

Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in her bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'.

Everyone in the orbit of the executive team knew about this behavior, and everyone gave it a pass, even going so far as to defend it and to protect Cheryl. This behavior should be universally deplored, and yet is not.

yoyohello13

12 minutes ago

By allowing powerful adults to act this way, we are in a sense teaching our children to act this way too.

captainbland

an hour ago

I think the overtures about things we care about more just provide plausible deniability and that when you dig down, people are more concerned about the risks of challenging the wealthy than they are about such window dressing.

grokcodec

2 hours ago

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

jauntywundrkind

an hour ago

Much easier to do when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world. The cloud companies ability to not share the experience of those using the service, to be remote, is a much greater retreat than what was possible 101 years ago, it feels like.

normie3000

5 minutes ago

> when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world

That sure is an impressive ping!

giwook

2 hours ago

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same.

We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it.

Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

ryandrake

10 minutes ago

Unlike an elected government, who the common people at least in theory have a chance to replace via elections, the public pretty much has no say in what these companies and their leadership are allowed to do. Nobody voted for Meta. Nobody voted for Palantir. Nobody voted for Philip Morris. You can say that someone "voted with their wallet," but that doesn't point to a viable solution. "Not voting with your wallet" essentially means becoming a hermit and living isolated in the woods. Because there are no alternate companies that are ethical. Ethics have costs, and the nature of competition means that ethical companies will always be outcompeted and die to companies who don't care to pay those cost.

qnleigh

an hour ago

Also if you use Instagram regularly, consider replacing that time with something else. Does it really offer anything of value to you, compared to the harm Meta has caused?

fsloth

2 hours ago

It’s also a damn good book!

More like Catch-22 than a cheap ”spill the tea” ride.

dmschulman

36 minutes ago

It's been interesting to watch some of Wynn-William's claims be vindicated by recent court decisions about the addictive and manipulative qualities of Meta and Google's products. She left the company in 2017, and along with her many other allegations about Facebook and their executive team, had a good amount of information in the book about the reasoning, rationale, and management decisions that led to allowing advertisers to hyper target "coveted" demographics of tweens and children (among other claims).

Facebook, according to Wynn-Williams, sold advertisers on the fact that they could target young girls who post and then remove selfies from their services in order to market to demographics who were likely experiencing depression and negative feelings about their body image.

petcat

2 hours ago

My understanding is that as part of a severance package she received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement" clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company. The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by the contract she signed.

It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list. But it also sounds like she agreed to this in exchange for a lump-sum severance payment, and then broke the contract anyway. I'm not sure if this is really that principled of a thing. She sought-out and accepted a lot of money for this agreement.

troyvit

11 minutes ago

The article covers this:

Instead, [the arbitration ruling] relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her. Which it did, from March 13, 2025, her publication day. We could still publish the book, but our author could not talk about it.

So she followed the clause.

Personally I don't care. If she can publish the ugly truth about Meta and snag a pile of their money in the process I say power to her.

RIMR

an hour ago

It should not be legal to enforce this kind of thing 9 years after a person leaves your company. I get that it currently is legal, but have some principles. Just because this is legal doesn't mean it isn't morally reprehensible, and its legality should be challenged.

pwdisswordfishy

40 minutes ago

It should not be legal to enforce full stop. If you don't want to be disparaged, make your conduct worthy of not being disparaged. When you're being lied about, sue for defamation; "non-disparagement clauses" are redundant at best, an attack on free speech at worst.

mathgradthrow

28 minutes ago

You don't have to agree to a disparagement clause... She accepted a lot of money to agree to it.

SpicyLemonZest

6 minutes ago

The reason they’re not redundant is that we, rightly, don’t allow people to sue for defamation for many kinds of unfair speech and even some kinds of untrue speech. It’s not defamatory for you to call me careless or mean or rude, even if I can produce ironclad proof that you know I’m careful and kind.

seneca

an hour ago

Why would it not be legal to enforce a contract after 9 years? If she didn't want it enforced after a duration, she could have negotiated for that, or just not signed it.

I don't see how it's principled to legally swear to not do something, then turn around and do it anyways. She's an adult, she has agency, and she chose to enter that contract.

It's also not like we're talking about a legal whistleblower here. That act DOES (and should) have a lot of legal protections. This is someone writing a book that they personally profit from.

materielle

30 minutes ago

There are all sorts of contracts that are deemed non-enforceable. Our government should pass a law that bans non-disparagement clauses.

One of the most pressing problems of our time is that these large corporations, on balance, have too much power compared to the electorate.

SoftTalker

31 minutes ago

I basically agree but as a civil instrument, a contract is not a law. The only consequence of violating a contract should be having to pay back whatever damages were caused. Not prohibitions on behavior or other freedoms. Enforced by whom?

Corporations will violate contracts all the time as a cost of business if the cost of the violation is less than the benefit gained.

tclancy

35 minutes ago

Because it’s unbalanced. The company benefits for as long as the ex-employee is alive, the ex-employee’s trade, theoretically of a high salary and privilege for keeping shtum winds down fairly quickly.

andrewaylett

31 minutes ago

There would have been a power imbalance at the point of signing. I can well imagine that the implications of that particular clause weren't apparent at the time.

As a society (more so here in the UK than in the US, I'll grant) we have laws governing what one party may demand of the other. They don't prevent a genuine meeting of the minds, because enforcement of a contract will only be an issue if at least one party doesn't follow through. But they do limit the ability of the company to impose sanctions beyond a point.

One limitation in the UK is that penalty clauses that are "private fines", like this one, must be based on the actual damage caused.

In this case, as in the non-compete case, I would say that if a company wants to continue to influence what someone does, they should continue to pay them.

jeffbee

an hour ago

That's a ridiculous constraint to put on the freedom to enter into contracts.

Avicebron

an hour ago

So allowing someone to sign themselves into slavery should be "legal" because it's "impinging on someone's right to enter contracts"? I get that some people balk at "morally reprehensible" as some sort of slippery slope, but c'mon we as individuals have to function somewhat coherently. As a social species reliant on some form of social cohesion (how much oil did you refine this morning?) we have to have some guidelines.

jonahx

an hour ago

Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a stretch. The situation up for debate is: Should you be able to voluntarily accept money in exchange for promising not to say bad things about someone or some company? I don't see a good faith interpretation of that as "signing yourself into slavery".

wtallis

14 minutes ago

Nobody was trying to equate non-disparagement clauses with slavery. The relevance of slavery here is as an example of the kind of contract terms that everyone should be able to agree are rightly invalid and unenforceable. Any argument in favor of contract enforceability that would apply to a slavery contract just as easily as it applies to a non-disparagement contract is a bad argument, or at least woefully incomplete. Bringing up slavery serves as a necessary reminder that the details and nuance of the contract terms and their effects need to be discussed and argued, and that an unqualified "contracts should be valid" position is untenable and oversimplified.

ryandrake

2 minutes ago

The general principle is that you shouldn't be able to "sign away" something that's a constitutional or human right. Like the right to freely speak, the right to practice a religion, the right to be paid for work, and so on. Imagine if the severance contract specified that she had to convert to Islam in order to get her severance, or that she had to sacrifice a child. No court in the country would consider those clauses conscionable. Yet, somehow companies are allowed to gag your free speech as a provision in a contract? It makes no sense why this is allowed.

dragonwriter

an hour ago

> Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a stretch.

Arguably, its more like non-compete agreements but with the added fact that state enforcement of the agreements is in tension with freedom of speech.

But, you know, lots of jurisdictions sharply restrict enforceability of non-competes, too.

jeffbee

an hour ago

We already recognize that contracts that violate one party's fundamental human rights cannot be enforced because they "shock the conscience", in terms that American jurists use. This article does not include the terms of the non-disparagement clause, or the other terms and payments, so we can't really say whether the clause is vulnerable to being ruled unenforceable by courts. But it's wrong to say that nobody can enter into contracts that constrain their speech. People do that all the time.

1qaboutecs

13 minutes ago

The government enforces contracts, so it gets to choose which contracts it enforces. Without a functioning judicial system (and a law enforcement system to enforce its verdicts), a contract is a piece of paper.

Plenty of contracts benefit both parties but are bad for society as a whole, and if the government pre-signals which sorts of those contracts it will refuse to enforce, this is good for society.

tuckerman

an hour ago

For arbitrary contracts I would agree, but I think increasing the limitations in severance agreements specifically makes sense. There are already certain requirements (at least in California) for severance agreements and I think limiting the duration of non-disparagement clauses to 1-2 years would be a positive change.

josephcsible

an hour ago

IMO, "freedom to enter into contracts" isn't actual freedom, for the same reason that the MIT license isn't more free than the GPL despite it allowing more behaviors: in both cases, it's basically "permission to have your freedom taken away".

cwillu

an hour ago

This sort of ridiculous “criticism” is why I have a hard time taking libertarians seriously.

mindslight

an hour ago

You're invoking a common "libertarian" trope, so I'm going to address that larger topic. Right-fundamentalist (ie axiomatic) "libertarianism" is fallacious. Logically, an unlimited "right" to contract straightforwardly allows us to reframe any totalitarian state as being contracts between the state and its citizens/subjects/victims. And merely renaming things clearly does not make for a society that respects individual liberty!

The only sensible way to approach libertarianism is to qualitatively evaluate individual liberty. And being prohibited from speaking 8 years after the fact, especially when there is a compelling public interest, is in no way equitable. If they want her continued silence, they should have to buy that on the order of year to year.

maximinus_thrax

an hour ago

> "non-disparagement" clause

Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

mikkupikku

41 minutes ago

I don't think such clauses have ever been held to prevent people from testifying in criminal trials. Signing book deals on the other hand...

If it's true that she signed a severance deal, e.g. signed this when she was leaving and therefore already knew she was agreeing to protect a bunch of snakes.. Well she fucked up. At the point when she signed that agreement she was already informed and aware of what kind of people she was agreeing to not disparage.

BeetleB

41 minutes ago

I doubt such clauses can prevent you from disclosing them to relevant authorities. Disclosing them to the public is a whole other matter.

Esophagus4

20 minutes ago

It’s kind of murky.

NLRB under Biden seemed to say that yeah you can disclose this to the media, and broad non-disparagements are unenforceable. But it’s also kind of a toss up depending on the NLRB, courts, administration, etc.

Trump’s NLRB has rescinded a bunch of that Biden-era guidance, so what is enforceable and what isn’t? Kind of hard to say at this point.

Arbitration agreed with Meta, but who knows what courts would say.

https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/nlrb-requires-change...

https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2226/2025-0...

beepbooptheory

an hour ago

If I am understanding correctly wouldn't that make it a more principled "thing" on her end? Like if you know they're gonna have a good case against you and still blow the whistle anyway, isn't that acting through some kind of principle, versus, at least, acting out when you feel you will be protected?

jamiequint

27 minutes ago

No, principled would be refusing to sign the exit agreement and forefeiting the money, then writing the book.

beepbooptheory

11 minutes ago

But how are supposed to know in that moment that's what you wanna do? Aren't there different ways to be principled?

ipython

an hour ago

These tools, quite frankly, are simply mechanisms for the already rich and powerful to cement their position and sweep any misdeeds under the rug.

While I agree that you are technically correct, I also think we will look back on this period with disgust just as we did when we considered women unworthy of franchise.

chamomeal

2 hours ago

I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws. Your employment agreement can include stuff like “if you say anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us $50,000”.

What in the world?? I guess NDA’s are like that, and used everywhere. Still it just seems wild

Aurornis

42 minutes ago

> Your employment agreement can include stuff like “if you say anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us $50,000”.

Non-disparagement clauses are limited by the law, which in the United States is augmented by state-level restrictions. There have been some recent developments from the NRLB limiting how severance agreements can be attached to non-disparagement clauses, too.

So it's not generally true that you can be liable for $50K for saying anything bad about your employer in your own home.

The situation with this author is on the other end of "in your own home" spectrum: They went out and wrote a whole book against their employer that violates NDAs, too. Regardless of what you think about Meta or the author, this was clearly a calculated move on their part to draw out a lawsuit because it provides further press coverage and therefore book sales (just look at all the comments in this thread from people claiming they're motivated to go buy it it now). Whether the gamble pays off or not remains to be seen.

renewiltord

10 minutes ago

Huh, I didn't think of that. If you are aware of the Streisand Effect, it is only logical to use it to your own advantage. Just like Cunningham's Law, you can often get the right answer by posting the wrong one. In fact, this is probably the first time someone is knowingly using the Streisand Effect to their own advantage. There are no prior examples.

torton

44 minutes ago

I think people living outside the US don't realize how few disputes here are actually allowed to use the official legal system when dealing with companies of non-trivial size. Many employment contracts, many service contracts, and even website terms of use require mandatory arbitration in lieu of pursuing one's claims in court.

And arbitrator companies (some of which are explicitly for-profit) know the hand that feeds them.

Joker_vD

2 hours ago

Ah, don't worry, we have a concept of "onerous clause doctrine" to help with that. Of course, it's almost entirely up to a judge's discretion what is and is not onerous, so...

sbarre

an hour ago

And you might spend more than $50,000 challenging it in court, because the billion dollar corporation you signed it with would rather spend the money against you than set a precedent everyone else could use against them in the future.

kubb

2 hours ago

Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.

SauntSolaire

2 hours ago

There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

I understand freedom of speech and I understand she's free to speak but there may be consequences. I understand that there are huge complexities in the legal system. I understand you can enter into agreements (part of your speech) that effectively gives away your speech. But if you step back and look at this situation, it's just fucked up that a corporation can do this to you. If freedom of speech is supposed to be inalienable, these types of agreements should not be legal.

disclaimer: She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US perspective.

zaphar

15 minutes ago

The corporation did not do this to her. It was a two party agreement. She bears just as much blame for the agreement as the corporation. She entered into it willingly. And that does and should have consequences.

Morally speaking I think the company is reprehensible. But nor do I think contact law should be changed because of it.

rkomorn

10 minutes ago

I'd agree with you if there wasn't a significant power imbalance that virtually always skews way more in favor of the corporation.

It is far more likely that an individual would do best to agree to a corporation's terms even if they favor the corporation than the other way around.

thayne

an hour ago

> She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US perspective.

But the contract is being enforced from the US.

fmajid

31 minutes ago

The UK is far worse, with draconian libel laws where the burden of proof is on the defendant. Originally designed to stop uppity commoners from challenging the aristocrats, now used by oligarchs to silence journalists.

mindslight

10 minutes ago

> I understand she's free to speak but there may be consequences

nit: this isn't generally a valid analysis. Rather, this is common a refrain used by those who want to undermine freedom of speech while pretending to support it. This trope is even often trotted out in full-powertalk mode where it's applied to consequences coming from the government itself.

mikkupikku

an hour ago

In Germany, this sort of thinking is the reason you can't release anything into the public domain. People are presumed to be too stupid to be trusted with the decision to renounce their copyright and so they are "protected" from this possibility.

bell-cot

44 minutes ago

Did you mean to say "presumed to be too stupid, or too easily conned or coerced"?

mikkupikku

38 minutes ago

Have you ever been conned into releasing something into the public domain? Me either. Its not a real problem. But signing over the rights to some corporate party? That happens all the time, and is permitted in Germany. Germany is being very stupid here. They're letting abstract reasoning about principles blind them to common sense (many such cases in German history.)

oliwarner

an hour ago

Is it freedom if you can't make an informed choice to sell it?

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

I would argue yes. If you have the choice to sell to sell it, you can be forced to sell it.

One can still give up their basic rights if they so choose. The woman in question can cease from disparaging Meta for the rest of her life. A person can opt to enter in to being a slave to another for the rest of their life. I can choose to follow one religion or another or none at all. But one should never have those options taken from them.

FpUser

an hour ago

In a normal society courts should be protecting from signing away basic freedoms

SauntSolaire

an hour ago

That would also preclude non-disclosure agreements. I'm curious if you also find those unreasonable?

dragonwriter

an hour ago

Both non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements should—just as many jurisdictions have for non-compete agreements, which do not even implicate free speech the way the others do—be sharply limited as a matter of public policy (non-disparagement even moreso than non-disclosure.) Both are routinely used to inflict public harm for private gain, and government enforcement of either is in tension with freedom of speech; while there is a legitimate case to be made that non-disclosure agreements within certain bounds have a certain degree of necessity in enabling legitimate business, this is a much harder case to make for non-disparagement agreements, at least for ones that are not temporally bounded within an active business relationship.

FpUser

an hour ago

Depends on what type of non-disclosure. Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those. Disclosing that boss treats people like trash should be allowed and I think lawmakers should have enough intelligence in their brains to make laws accordingly.

wtallis

5 minutes ago

> Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those.

I would love to see NDAs for trade secrets limited in a way that incentivizes companies to rely on patent protection instead, where the system is set up to ensure that knowledge eventually becomes public record and freely usable by anyone. It would be very interesting to see how eg. the tech industry would change if trade secret protection were limited to a meaningfully shorter duration than patents.

SauntSolaire

an hour ago

I get that you're not a free speech maximalist, but that's still signing away a basic freedom.

0x3f

an hour ago

What are 'basic freedoms'?

pessimizer

an hour ago

If you don't believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, you should start by offering your list. If you do believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, then unlimited freedom of contract is a basic freedom for you.

What you shouldn't do is pretend not to understand.

0x3f

an hour ago

I'm not the one making a positive claim. I haven't even claimed such rights exist so why on earth would be the expectation be that I list them? You've assumed that I believe in this shared fiction.

We sell ourselves into a form of slavery every day. Some would argue that is a big driver of our current society and way of life.

AndrewKemendo

an hour ago

You can’t get people to try to break out of a prison they don’t think they are in

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

Those that are deemed inalienable.

SauntSolaire

an hour ago

Freedom of speech is far from inalienable. Non-disclosure agreements are most relevant, but every country on earth also has at least some regulations regarding hate speech, threats, incitement, purjury, or defamation — not to mention security clearances or state secrets.

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

And that's where the complexity arises in this argument that I don't know how to resolve. In the case of this woman vs Meta, to me it doesn't "feel" legal that one disparaging comment costs $50K. It feels that there's something wrong here that should not be allowed despite her entering the agreement. Maybe I don't believe she should have been allowed to enter the agreement.

But I understand that my point of view doesn't match legal code. Just feels fucked.

SauntSolaire

40 minutes ago

To be clear, I do agree with everything you've said here — I just disagree that freedom of speech is an inalienable right, and I don't think there's ever been a time or place where it has actually been considered one.

If it were up to me, I would require non-disparagement agreements to be standalone contracts, and cap the damages a company can claim to the amount they paid you to sign it. Once that number is met, the contract is void. That way the company only gets as much leverage as they're willing to pay for.

AndrewKemendo

an hour ago

The majority of people will self-alienate themselves in exchange for power or even just survival

Think of a person digging their own grave under threat of immediate murder (tons of well documented examples). This is the maximum self alienation: do work to make life easier for your oppressors.

In my 41 years it seems like the majority of people are content digging their own graves

0x3f

an hour ago

Please enumerate these inaliable basic freedoms that I should not be able to deal in.

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

If you'd like to research basic freedoms, I would suggest starting here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_rights

0x3f

an hour ago

It's very boring for you not to actually commit to anything specific, so that you don't have to defend it.

mcbutterbunz

an hour ago

There's a basic list on that page. There are many LLMs out there that you can discuss this with if you want to waste your own time. I'm not going to waste any more time with this thread. You have an attitude that says "Debate me but you'll never convince me". If you'd like to learn something, there are many resources on the internet available to you.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

The US will not permit you to sign yourself into slavery, as an example.

0x3f

an hour ago

Only for a very narrow definition of slavery. Arguably constructing society such that it costs so much to just exist (for example, by artificially restricting housing supply) and thus you have to work is not all that different to slavery. I would say the dollar is but company scrip with better PR.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

> Only for a very narrow definition of slavery.

Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable basic [freedom] that I should not be able to deal in".

0x3f

an hour ago

Well now you're equivocating. We've established one that you can't deal in in a specific country. _Should_ is quite a different question. You can't establish should by establishing is.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

Don't hurt your back moving those goalposts. Lift with hips.

0x3f

an hour ago

America = literally the whole world and everyone in it so QED inalienable rights exist

Well I wouldn't call it a strong argument...

Nonetheless the goalposts were never shifted. The question was always 'should'. So I'm very confused by your confusion.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

What proof, exactly, would you accept for "should"?

Should is an opinion. You're welcome to feel "slavery should be legal". I'm welcome to (and should) think you're insane for holding that opinion.

0x3f

an hour ago

> Should is an opinion.

Well that would seem to make the rights in question not particularly inalienable. In fact if we're talking about the US slavery _is_ legal in certain contexts. So it's definitely not inalienable. Only in the context of voluntary agreements between private citizens.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

> Well that would seem to make the rights in question not particularly inalienable.

You should read up on what "inalienable rights" are about. Even the first couple of paragraphs on Wikipedia will suffice.

They get violated all the time and need constant protecting.

0x3f

an hour ago

You're taking a strangely ethnocentric view here. I don't take the founding fathers' writings as a form of scripture. Those are but bare assertions.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

You're taking a strangely US-centric view here.

This has nothing to do with the founding fathers. The Ancient Greeks talked about natural law. The UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 193 countries have ratified at least parts of it.

Again, I beg you to at least read a paragraph or two off Wikipedia.

0x3f

43 minutes ago

The specific term 'inalienable' is heavily associated with the founding of the US. The others are different things but not very different in substance, i.e. ultimately some guy claimed these are universal rights. Wikipedia is not going to make appeal to authority work any better as an argument, I'm afraid.

ceejayoz

42 minutes ago

Clear ignorance again.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

> Preamble

> Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...

0x3f

36 minutes ago

Is the US not in the UN now or something? The whole UNUDHR was an Eleanor Roosevelt project. She literally drafted the documents! At least look it up before being rude. You need to get the knowledge before applying the sass.

ceejayoz

31 minutes ago

"An American helped convince 193 countries of something, therefore it's invalid" is a take, I suppose.

0x3f

28 minutes ago

Well this was really just a sub-argument about whether 'inalienable' is an Americanism, which it is. The real point about 'natural' rights, or whatever term you've switched to using, is that they're simply assertions. Not supported by anything else. Doesn't really matter who is asserting them. The argument takes the same form, and is equally bunk.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

Free speech?

0x3f

an hour ago

So I can't sign an exclusive book deal? Or write for a newspaper?

ceejayoz

an hour ago

Exclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans.

I'm not clear on the newspaper example; do you think reporters aren't allowed to write stuff outside their job? Plenty of reporters publish books.

mikkupikku

an hour ago

> Exclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans

Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable basic [freedom] that peopke should be able to deal in".

Of course, we can quibble over the permissible duration of such timespans, but I think the point has been made clear.

ceejayoz

38 minutes ago

Just to be clear: you're asserting that "there are some inalienable rights" can be debunked by the existance of one that is not inalienable?

That's not how this works.

SauntSolaire

31 minutes ago

You asserted that free speech was an inalienable right, they provided an example showing it's not.

They also could have mentioned: NDA's, hate speech, threats, incitement, purjury, defamation, security-clearances or state secrets.

ceejayoz

28 minutes ago

> You asserted that free speech was an inaliable right, they provided an example showing it's not.

No.

"Inalienable right", like the "right to bear arms", has never meant you get to do anything with it. Free speech doesn't extend to defamation; free expression doesn't extend to murder; freedom of the press doesn't extend to sneaking into the CIA's archives, freedom of movement doesn't apply to jails.

I'm of the opinion that arbitration clauses and non-disparagement agreements of the scope involved in this particular case are unconsionable, because they unreasonably infringe upon such inalienable rights.

mikkupikku

37 minutes ago

We're talking about whether people should be permitted to sign away their right to speech. I think you've conceded that such is permissible at least for a limited duration. Shall we quibble the permissible durations, or are you done?

ceejayoz

34 minutes ago

Sure; we have to resolve conflicts between two sets of people with rights sometimes. The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud; the inalienable right to freedom of movement doesn't apply to jailed murderers.

Unconscionability is a bit like obscenity; hard to perfectly define, but sometimes quite clear.

SauntSolaire

29 minutes ago

> The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud

You have a strange definition of "inalienable".

ceejayoz

26 minutes ago

Not really; it's a conflict between two groups and sets of rights.

I have the inalienable right to not be defamed and defrauded.

Now we have to resolve the contradiction as a society. That it's sometimes messy doesn't mean we ditch the concept of rights.

0x3f

an hour ago

No I just mean in the sense that I give over the rights to my own words. I can't repeat them outside of the context that I've agreed to. They were both examples of the same kind of agreement. They'll keep those rights well after I'm dead, by the way.

TheOtherHobbes

32 minutes ago

You're not giving over the rights, you're selling the right to profit from them under contract.

You can argue that contract law is essentially a battle of relative political and economic power, and IP and employment contracts will always be unfair unless limits are set by statute and enforced enthusiastically.

And personally I would.

But generally you're signing away the rights to specific text, not the insights or commentary in that text, and if you freelance there's nothing to stop you making your points through some other channel, and/or some other text.

If you're a full-time employee then the usual agreement is that your words (code) are work product and owned by your employer, and you're in that situation because your political and economic power is relatively limited.

jeffbee

an hour ago

It's a condition of the severance payment. She didn't need to sign it. She wanted the money. Then she violated the terms of the contract.

ghostpepper

an hour ago

I'm not a lawyer but even if it was, eg. a year's salary at the time she accepted it, is that really a fair price for a lifetime of silence?

Esophagus4

42 minutes ago

That would be up to her, wouldn’t it?

And she signed it, so presumably it was for her.

devilbunny

9 minutes ago

Maybe? Is your argument that there is no fair price, or that it wasn’t enough? The former makes NDAs unenforceable.

fmajid

18 minutes ago

NDAs cannot cover whistleblowing of actual criminality, including sexual harassment, which is why modern NDAs take pains to disclaim that, so they wouldn't be invalidated on that basis. Presumably the behavior exposed in the book, while arguably immoral or amoral, doesn't rise to the standard of criminality.

loeg

10 minutes ago

Writing a book isn't covered whistleblowing. If she wants to go to the FBI or whatever, no one can stop her.

0x3f

an hour ago

> I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws.

What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to thing.

TrackerFF

an hour ago

Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

Some contracts are illegal, and purely made to intimidate the other party - and completely rests on the fact that said other party will never challenge or even check if the contract is valid in the first place. Hence why so many of these contracts also have arbitration clauses which stipulate that the parties must resolve through private arbitration.

Any time someone has the balls to challenge these things is also a win for the working man.

0x3f

an hour ago

> Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

You mean, like the one in the article the GP is pretending not to understand?

nativeit

an hour ago

Human Cent-iPad style?

browningstreet

an hour ago

And yet it’s not even that simple. Contracts can be invalidated.

Other countries have fairness doctrines with allow/disallow lists of things that can be included in contracts.

There are other ways.

idop

an hour ago

Except that a well functioning society that expects its laws to be respected cannot allow the law to be circumvented by commercial agreements.

If a country passes a law that guarantees all its citizens the right to free speech, and now a company forces (!) a citizen to sign a contract saying they waive that right in order to receive the compensation they're entitled to anyway, why should the country accept that? Why should that person lose their right to free speech? Did the country give the company the authority to cancel its own laws at will?

It's the same with companies forcing candidates to sign non-compete agreements in order to be hired, if and when the company fires them. If you're a lawyer, and your employer fires you, what do you do? Work as a cashier for 3 years until the NCC expires? Change your career?

No company should have the authority to make the illegal legal (or vice-versa), and no country should accept its own citizens giving away their rights to some for-profit company. That's mafia shit: "If you excercise your right to free speech to expose our crimes, we will withhold the money we owe you and ruin your life in court".

Sign me up!!

SauntSolaire

2 hours ago

A good reminder not to sign contracts with non-disparagement clauses, if you can help it. Seems like good territory for California to ban like they did with non-competes. At the very least they should be restricted from inclusion in severance agreements - at that point the company already has you over a barrel.

cmiles74

an hour ago

I'm not sure we can hold individuals responsible for signing these non-disparagement clauses. They often don't have a lawyer to review the paperwork and, I am sure, employers like Facebook aren't going to wait for a new hire to have a lawyer review that paperwork. There's a real pressure to sign everything with HR and get on to starting your new role.

Plus the power imbalance.

SauntSolaire

8 minutes ago

If you can't hold individuals responsible for signing contracts on the premise that they might not read them, you've simultaneously invalidated most contracts, increased the cost to enter a contract (essentially subsidizing the law industry), and severely limited the ability for individuals to enter into contracts — not to mention infantilizing adults who are fully capable of reading a document before signing it.

Furthermore, this was a severance agreement, not employment agreement, so having a lawyer review your contract is not going to delay you from starting your role.

I have my issues with this situation, but "they might not have read/understood the contract" isn't one of them.

RIMR

an hour ago

I mean, a reasonable non-disparagement clause for your current employees makes sense. You don't want your employees actively undermining the company in public. If they don't believe in what you're doing, they should be able to quit and say whatever they want. It should end immediately when your employment ends. It should be illegal to make it compulsary for severance packages, as many companies do.

And there need to be serious regulations about how these agreements can be used, and those regulations should protect whistleblowers at all costs. Like a public figure suing for libel/slander/defamation, the burden of proving statements false should rest entirely with the company.

SauntSolaire

an hour ago

What's the need for a non-disparagement clause then? If they're a current employee, you have their continued employment as leverage.

jeffbee

an hour ago

The clause in question didn't even arise until after employment ended. Again, this person faced no obligation to sign this contract. They wanted the payment, so they signed it.

garethsprice

2 hours ago

Ordered a hard copy of the book, don't trust that an eBook version won't get revoked or edited at some point.

Timely given I just tried to sign into Meta for the first time in a year or two as I am being required to work on a Marketing API integration, got prompted for a video selfie(!) and my account is now in "Community Review" as maybe my expression was too grumpy about being required to present myself for inspection. Abhorrent company.

liendolucas

an hour ago

The book is so good that once picked up you can't stop reading it. I've left Facebook many many many years ago and ever came back. The book just reinforced my aversion to any product that's out there that is designed to waste your time and manipulate your head. I sincerely hope that whoever ruled the gag on the author reverses the decision and at least reads the book and understands how nasty and evil Facebook is.

AugustoCAS

an hour ago

This is common across all corporations. My go-to example is Unilever or Nestle pushing products that are 100% unhealthy.

In Asia, it's not uncommon to see healthy drinks for children that are sugar+artificial flavouring with huge marketing campaigns targetting the parents . The corporation makes millions and then advertises how they donated $10k to an obesity charity.

mil22

an hour ago

Yes. Even companies like Google have had plenty of scandals involving senior leadership. I've personally heard more than a few that are not public from people with direct knowledge. The difference is that some companies and executives are simply better at containing the fallout, suppressing what gets out, or cultivating such a polished public image that allegations seem implausible because they clash so sharply with the persona they project.

If you're considering working for a billionaire, choose carefully whose fortune and influence you're helping expand. Caveat emptor applies to employees as well. Or even better, don't work for one at all.

bicepjai

17 minutes ago

Streisand effect. I didn’t care about the book but I will have listened to this book by this weekend.

lucasay

2 hours ago

non-disparagement clauses doing a lot of heavy lifting here

ceejayoz

2 hours ago

> The ruling, awarded without proper notice by an emergency arbitrator (a non-court mediator that is part of the American Arbitration Association), actually said nothing about the truth or otherwise of Sarah’s devastating claims in her book. It made no mention of defamation. Instead, it relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her.

It's well past time to rein in arbitration.

It really should be treated like small claims court; only permissible up to a point. Once it's high-stakes enough, real courts should be in play.

pants2

2 hours ago

So what happens if the author ignores this judgement? Surely arbitration can't send someone to prison. According to the web they still need a court to even confirm a monetary penalty.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

Per the article:

"facing fines of $50,000 for every statement that could be seen to be “negative or otherwise detrimental” to Meta"

> According to the web they still need a court to even confirm a monetary penalty.

No, not necessarily with arbitration. The judgement itself may need to be confirmed in some states; it likely already has.

vr46

18 minutes ago

Public interest argument is strong here

ethin

an hour ago

Honestly, I would be all for outright abolishing arbitration. I have yet to see anything actually good come out of arbitration other than a ruling that protects the entity that forced arbitration in the first place.

asgraham

an hour ago

The good is hidden: court systems are already overwhelmed. If the arbitration cases were added, then it’d take even longer to get a court date.

(Which isn’t to say I think the system as it is is good, just that there is a good)

ethin

22 minutes ago

Then fix the court system? Create more courts, hire more judges/clerks... I mean, I know it isn't "as simple" as that, but that's the proper solution instead of creating a half-legal half-favoritist system where a company can force you into arbitration where, more often than not, the arbitrator is paid by the company, and therefore rules in it's favor.

zb1plus

an hour ago

Sounds like the solution is just hire more judges instead

Invictus0

2 hours ago

she agreed to it to get a severance payment

ceejayoz

2 hours ago

That should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such an agreement heavily limited.

thejazzman

2 hours ago

“Sign this or starve” isn’t much of a stretch when you think about it

0x3f

an hour ago

As if Meta employees live on the cusp of starving.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-faceb...

> Some of the content moderators were earning $28,800 a year, the technology news site The Verge found last year.

In this particular case, the legal costs are probably pretty ruinous.

0x3f

an hour ago

I think you'll find the person in question's title is quite far from content moderator.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

I think you'll find that's why the "in this particular case" line is there.

0x3f

an hour ago

Nobody forced her to break her contract and thus come up against that. She would have been perfectly fine on the leftovers from ~$500k/y while searching for her next job. The parent makes out like she simply had to get the extra money, lest she starve to death. Which is patently ridiculous.

indymike

an hour ago

I hate seeing this down-voted. It is such an important warning to people here. Severance agreements are pretty strong. Also, be very careful of snap settlement offers.

So many of the greatest tragedies I've seen inflicted on people come from accepting an expedient way to get what is really a small amount of money quickly. So often the drive is paying the rent/mortgage or fear of losing health benefits. If you are in a bad situation and offered a settlement and you really feel like something isn't right please talk to an employment lawyer. Most US States have expedited processes for quickly resolving these cases, and the lawyer can help you a lot when you feel like your only choice is to take the severance.

ppseafield

2 hours ago

She had serious debilitating medical issues from pregnancy where she lost a ton of blood and was in a coma for several days and nearly died. Of course she's going to take her severance to help care for her family given the atrocious state of our healthcare system.

khalic

29 minutes ago

Well I know what I’m reading tonight.

williamDafoe

an hour ago

These non disparagement contracts are typical in silicon valley. Databricks offered me a tiny amount of money and expected me to sign when they fired me on a whim after my stock grant quadrupled in 9 months. There was no warning and no review, just fired. They fired my 2 managers within the year, too, probably because they were fools.

I told them to fuck off. I should have continued with the lawsuit, probably.

But in american courts its "heads i win tails you lose" with labor laws - according to my lawyer wins are in the low single digits for discrimination lawsuits.

fwipsy

an hour ago

How the hell did Zuck run Facebook for so long without learning about the Streisand effect?

hsuduebc2

37 minutes ago

Because he simply doesn't have to. He is controlling comically evil ad machine which is always caught redhanded doing something deeply immoral and nothing ever happens for them apart fine from EU from time to time. He is not even trying to have some positive image. He doesn't have to.

ceejayoz

an hour ago

The Streisand effect has a bit of confirmation bias at play.

For every case of "idiot billionaire tries to suppress story and fails" I suspect there are quite a few "billionaire successfully suppresses story" cases.

ChrisMarshallNY

44 minutes ago

Ms. Streisand. Paging Ms. Barbra Streisand. Please pick up the white courtesy phone.

I am not sure which exec at meta thought that this would be a good idea.

They are, literally, giving the book the best publicity it could have ever had. She's probably happy to not talk about it. There will be plenty of proxies that only have to read out of the book, prefacing it with "This is what Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want you to hear."

blitzar

an hour ago

Across America, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

zoklet-enjoyer

2 hours ago

It's great that she spoke out, but she was complicit in all of this too.

https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-fac...

fwipsy

an hour ago

The theme of the book is "power corrupts." Wynn-Williams is not an exception. Sometimes she acknowledges it, sometimes she glosses over it, but the way the job compromised her own morality is one of the most fascinating parts of the book.

I am not sure I would have done better in her place. When it's your livelihood (or your friends,) it's so much easier to just fall in line. If she'd gotten along personally with the other execs, the book wouldn't even exist.

renewiltord

2 hours ago

This is going to be one of those threads with LLM-grade comments about stealing your information and arbitration and this and that but I'm early enough that I can shame all of you first by at least having read the first page of this book so I can tell you that the author has had an interesting life. The book starts with an actual shark attack. It's pretty famous, it's in the news and stuff: https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360667776/sister-hits-bac...

The story is pretty close to this one in TAL: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/476/transcript so many people on reddit speculate it's the same. I never verified or I missed that in the book if it says so.

Then she apparently nearly died again giving birth to one of her children. And then here with the Zuckexposé. I'm reminded that people live all sorts of lives full of detail and story. Great stuff.

beloch

an hour ago

"Haigh highlighted Wynn-Williams’s case in the House of Commons during a debate about employment rights on Monday. She said Wynn-Williams’s decision to speak out had plunged her into financial peril.

“Despite previous public statements that Meta no longer uses NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] in cases of sexual harassment – which Sarah has repeatedly alleged – she is being pushed to financial ruin through the arbitration system in the UK, as Meta seeks to silence and punish her for speaking out,” she said.

“Meta has served a gagging order on Sarah and is attempting to fine her $50,000 for every breach of that order. She is on the verge of bankruptcy. I am sure that the whole house and the government will stand with Sarah as we pass this legislation to ensure that whistleblowers and those with the moral courage to speak out are always protected.”

It is understood that the $50,000 figure represents the damages Wynn-Williams has to pay for material breaches of the separation agreement she signed when she left Meta in 2017. Meta has emphasised that Wynn-Williams entered into the non-disparagement agreement voluntarily as part of her departure."

...

"The ruling stated Wynn-Williams should stop promoting the book and, to the extent she could, stop further publication. It did not order any action by Pan Macmillan."

Source:[1]

----------------------------------

This would probably boil down to a "He said, she said" type of situation, albeit with one side being aggressively litigious, were it not for Facebook's long track record of casual and unthinking irresponsibility. e.g. Myanmar[2]. Second, the non-disparagement clause was apparently foisted upon Wynn-Williams when she was leaving the company, not when she was hired. That suggests Meta knew they'd treated her poorly and feared consequences. Finally, the book that resulted has come out at a time when multiple countries are starting to pass legislation to control the harm Facebook and other social media companies do (e.g. The social media ban for minors in Australia). Meta clearly does not want a book like "Careless People" trending right now.

Meta has both a history of bad behaviour and a strong motive to silence such a book. For these reasons, I'm disinclined to believe Meta's claims that these allegations are "false and defamatory". Wynn-Williams probably was "toxic". She was an executive at Meta after all. Her claims can be true at the same time.

________________________

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expo...

[2]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

LightBug1

2 hours ago

On behalf Ms. Wynn-Williams' but without her say so ...

FUCK META.

Is that allowed?

RIMR

an hour ago

YC is run by these kinds of careless people, so in a literal sense it probably isn't allowed, but we should say it anyway:

FUCK META

righthand

an hour ago

FUCK META

FUCK YC TOO

FUCK ALL THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE

mil22

an hour ago

It's a great read. Here are some of the most salacious bits.

---

She details the bizarrely intimate demands former COO Sheryl Sandberg placed on her young, female assistants - including demanding the author get into bed with her on a private jet:

"Sheryl recently instructed Sadie to buy lingerie for both of them with no budget, and Sadie obeyed, spending over $10,000 on lingerie for Sheryl and $3,000 on herself. ... 'Happy to treat your breasts as they should be treated,' Sheryl responds. ... Sheryl responds by asking her twenty-six-year-old assistant to come to her house to try on the underwear and have dinner. Later the invite becomes one to stay over. Lean in and lie back."

---

Facing open arrest warrants from the South Korean government over a regulatory dispute, Facebook's leadership team (including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg) realize it is too legally dangerous for them to travel there. So VP of Communications Elliot Schrage proposes a sociopathic solution:

"It’s breathtaking to me, how casually leadership speaks of employees being jailed. As if it’s a fact of life like taxes...

'We need to get someone to test the appetite of the Korean authorities for arresting someone from headquarters. It can’t be someone located there. They need to fly in before Mark and Sheryl do. You know, a body,' Elliot states matter-of-factly. The room falls silent. It’s a weird thing to realize that the tech world, this most modern of industries, has cannon fodder."

---

A woman suffers a severe medical emergency in the middle of the open-plan office while everyone just keeps typing:

"She’s foaming at the mouth and her face is bleeding. She must’ve hit something when she fell from her desk. And she’s being completely ignored. She’s surrounded by desks and people at computers and no one’s helping her. Everyone types busily on their keyboards, pretending nothing is happening.

'Are you her manager?' I ask a woman at a nearby desk who seems to be studiously concentrating on her computer, while a woman convulses in pain at her feet. 'Yes. But I’m very busy,' she says brusquely. ... 'She’s a contractor. I don’t have that sort of information. Her contract’s coming to an end soon. I suggest you call HR.'"

---

She uncovers secret internal documents detailing Mark Zuckerberg's master plan to get Facebook into China:

"But the thing that gets me is where Facebook’s leadership states that one of the 'cons' of Facebook being the one who’s accountable for content moderation is this: 'Facebook employees will be responsible for user data responses that could lead to death, torture and incarceration.'

... And yet, despite the fact that our employees would be responsible for death, torture, and incarceration... the consensus among Mark and the Facebook leaders was that this was what they’d prefer..."