The article's theory is similar:

> But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because: [...] c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.

I am assuming you are referring to Nick Clegg. The British are very easy to cow and bankrupt thanks to egregious libel laws that put the burden of proof on the defendant. They also have super injunctions allowing wrongdoers like Trafigura to silence whistleblowers and journalists.

The article mentions:

> But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because:

> a) They've done even worse things since Wynn-Williams parted ways with the company; and

> b) They're laying off thousands of workers because their giant bet on AI has been a flop, leaving them with a massive cash crunch; and

> c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.

I remember during the Google anti-trust case that there was example after example of "people behaving badly". Most of these were tools in the anti-competitive bucket but it does make you wonder about the things that happen that were never committed to code nor written down.

> someone else British, say?

I genuinely don't know what this is in reference to but it's notable Christopher Wylie got suspended on FB

Which is obviously more of a priority than any number of horrible things you could report which never get taken down

Employee - Large organization.

Mosquito - Human.

You don't swat a mosquito out of fear, you swat it out of preventing a minor nuisance.

A whistleblower is a mosquito that's bitten a human. The most likely outcome is an imminent, violent swat, resulting in career destruction.

> It is just plain ago and pettiness […] Why else would Zuck cheat on a board game

Recently I felt somewhat enlightened on this point, specifically in regards to Trump cheating at golf and some of his bald-faced lies, but I’d speculate it applies here too. Others pointed out to me that while it might look petty and ridiculous to normal people, it’s a social power move to get away with things, and serves the purpose of testing what can be gotten away with, and practicing or exercising the push dynamic. It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor. It may be somewhat important that the cheating is visible. It can also be social signaling to see who comes to their defense when called out, which is an effect that has been playing out on the national stage with obvious lies being repeated, defended, or excused. It’s not about what’s true, but about people showing the rule breaker who’s on their side, and giving them the power to break rules.

This, BTW, to me is a depressing and pessimistic view of power and politics and humanity, and I don’t think these kinds of power moves are something to aspire to, nor do they always work. But as a framework I have to admit it has a lot of explanatory power.

Too similar to Goldfinger cheating at cards and golf to not make me chuckle.

For a bit more context the Belarusian activist built on the anti communist Polish Activist Waldemar "Major" Fydrych who in the 1980’s was arrested by the communist authorities in Poland for handing out female sanitary products.

As he said “The Western World will find out much more about the situation in Poland from hearing that I was put to jail for giving tampons to a woman, than from reading the books and articles written by other people from the opposition.”

The story about cheating at Scrabble bears a fairly close resemblance to the episode in the Tintin comic Flight 714 https://tintin.fandom.com/wiki/Flight_714 in which megarich industrialist Laszlo Carreidas cheats at Battleship while flying on his private jet https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1i6cv... . If the Scrabble incident really did happen then it's uncomfortable how close it comes to a fictional detail deliberately written to make Carreidas look unscrupulous and a bit ridiculous.

Some times its just underling opportunists (which is basically zucks inner circle at this point) defending the empire. Keeping that stupid child emperor on the throne is in their interest.

This applies to Elon's incredibly strange video game cheating scandal too.

It's pathetic and weird.

Maybe it's the same thing with we see with many (but not all) sports stars. Getting fame and fortune at a young age ossifies any kind of personal development that happens in people after that point.

Hallmarks of a sociopath. Trying to rationalize what he does in terms of normal ethics and motivations is a fool's errand.

Or perhaps Zuck didn't cheat on the board game, and the claim that he did is one of the purported falsehoods Meta says the book contains. That would also explain it.

> The same Joel Kaplan who was involved in a coup?

which coup, you're gonna have to be more specific

That is one of those events that makes me dislike the many worlds interpretation.

And now head of global policy at Metabook

Or, you know, just use a service intended for this purpose:

https://timestamp.stanford.edu/

Has anyone created a tool for easily doing this? Imagine if all the Virginia Guiffres of the world created crypto-provable diaries they could later reveal.

> if you fancy a potential career as a whitleblower,…

Most people don’t fancy a career as a whistleblower. They get their morals pushed further and further until they finally decide it is too much and they take the risk to their life and prosperity.

> it's much more credible and unassailable when the charge that the claims were made long after the fact for specific purposes is impossible.

If someone actually joined an org with plans to be a whistleblower I assume people complaining about whistleblowers trustworthiness would then be complaining that it was all lies because they always planned on leaking information.

> Aren't the clauses on non-disclosure, arbitration, etc., common in non-Meta employment contracts as well?

They are.

Personally, I think the law should require that nondisclosure agreements should be strictly time-bound[0], ban all non-disparagement agreements[1], and replace binding arbitration with non-binding arbitration or mediation[2] that can still be escalated to a court if it breaks down.

[0] by how much I am uncertain, but outside of national security considerations I can't think of anything that needs to last longer than a patent would have.

[1] Two arguments: (a) basic freedom of speech; (b) I am British by birth. The UK is so famous for being an easy place to sue for libel that the US passed laws making fines from British courts non-enforceable in the US; why then does the US allow private companies to insert the same effect via contract? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#United_States

[2] Court cases are really expensive for everyone. Arbitration is much cheaper and this itself can absolutely benefit workers and customers.

I believe the nondisparagement clause was signed as part of a termination agreement? So that part seems inaccurate at least.

If you are a former employee you don’t have much to gain by commenting here. If you say anything that isn’t unequivocally negative you will get downvoted into oblivion.

That's because you pretty quickly catch downvotes from people with sour grapes whenever you talk good about working at big tech. Quadruply so for companies much more hated than average like Palantir/Meta/Oracle. It's just what echo chamber downvoting culture gives you it doesn't really have to do with what's happening internally. They're very very happy to spill beans and talk about the current environment on Blind which is a lot less hostile.

> We're not saying many ex or current Meta employees talking about their experiences here, even if I am sure that HN is pretty popular among this crowd.

This is just false I think. I'd have to search for it, but in some of the recent stories about how morale at Meta is at an all-time low due to the layoffs and fiefdom-building I recall seeing a number of current and former Meta employees comment.

Plus, my guess is that the vast, vast majority of Facebook employees just aren't privy to outright illegal acts, and most people aren't going to break their nondisparagement clause just to break the latest bitchy thing somebody said regarding Zuck.

Could it be that people actually like their work there?

As used in common speech, whistleblowing also applies to exposing unethical or dangerous behavior, even if it is technically legal.

> Anyone who has worked in tech for any amount of time has signed an NDA.

Just because something is ubiquitous doesn't mean it's ok.

Not that NDAs are always bad, but they should have limited scope, and maybe expirations.

And blanket non-disparagement agreements that prevent employees from ever saying anything bad about their employer are clearly bad.

> Anyone who has worked in tech for any amount of time has signed an NDA. They are not nefarious.

Non-Disclosure agreements to protect a company's legitimate business and trade secrets aren't nefarious.

But I'd argue that Non-Disparagement agreements or non-disparagement clauses that block disclosure of inappropriate personal behavior is, in fact, nefarious.

Merriam Webster defines whistleblowing as:

> one who reveals something covert or who informs against another especially : an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or by other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency

Wikipedia further asserts:

> Whistleblowing is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed wrongful – whether it be illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical, or fraudulent

Arguably, nothing the NSA was doing was illegal. Was Snowden not a whistleblower?

And if something illegal has happened, non-disclosure agreements can't be enforced regarding disclosure of that activity. At least, not in the US.

"Whistleblowing" does refer to disclosing morally bankrupt behavior that isn't technically illegal, and NDAs are nefarious if they cover anything other than trade secrets.

The problem for Wynn-Williams is that she would have signed a non-disparage agreement with facebook to get that healthcare and payment after being sacked. She hints at it in the book.

The reason why I assert this is because everyone who accepts a payoff from facebook also has to sign one. Like Facebook's employment contracts, which are essentially identical apart from the bonus, name, title and location, I strongly suspect the non-disparagement agreement is also largely the same.

They basically say that "Meta agrees to not call you a piece of shit, but you agree to never talk about facebook in public. if you do, we will ask for all that money back, as a debt"

Now, as its contract law, and depending on where the contract says its valid, there might be ways to allow what Wynn-Williams is doing. After all, you cant contract out of legal obligations.

If Cory spent more time actually doing research, rather than reeling off allegories like an LLM, we might have got some actual insight from him. Alas, its down to randoms on HN to do that.

I mean, a lot of people these days, including a lot of anti-Facebook techies, seem to think it is right and proper to equate “freedom of speech” to the First Amendment to the US Constitution, scoped to the government only, whereas private actors can do whatever. (Though now that I think about it I don’t know if Doctorow does—hopefully not but I’ve been disappointed by quite a few childhood idols in this way over the last decade.)

Unproductive schadenfreude aside, how does one get not punishing opinions—even those that would put the listener in danger if implemented—broadly accepted as a value? I hesitate to say “accepted again” because I’m getting the impression this was always a fringe position, it’s just that on occasion said fringe intersected with the similarly small circle of people whose opinions were broadly publicized.

I kinda get the hate but harking back to the la terreur doesn’t do anyone any favors and instead will engender strange bedfellows.

Especially once you start icing out people who push back.

FDR is a very interesting case study. He had the country in the palm of his hand and could have cemented his (or his party’s) power permanently, but instead he left the republic intact.

Money is power. Power corrupts.

> using NDAs as a weapon like this.

This is standard in companies. I've seen companies give a pittance in exchange for a binding NDA and the person took it because they needed to pay rent that month. Meta is evil but in this case so is almost every other company and especially tech companies. Also, giving it back doesn't undo the contract, the deal was done.

everyone who accepts a payout from meta agrees to be bound by the non-disclosure agrement from the employment contract.

They also agree to a non-disparagement agreement. this is where Meta agrees not to chat shit about you, in return for you never talking publicly about them. The problem is, thats a fairly effective tool to enforce a lowly employee not chatting shit about a former company.

What I don't know is, what her penalty is. Espcially as both parties have disparaged each other publicly.

It’s not legal. There is a current federal lawsuit on this exact topic.

> I am thoroughly seduced by a power I've never felt, even if I see it as poison.

Meditate on the idea of the negative sum game the people who seek power prefer, and then about what you'd rather see them, or yourself do with that power. Because of the things I actually care about, I find that random fantastical/idealistic desire for power to be hollow, something much easier to see in comparison. I don't care about power, for powers sake (the best way, perhaps only way, to obtain power itself). All my power fantasies involve some sort of stopping people from using their power to abuse and take from others.

There's nothing wrong being seduced by power, if you're worried about how it might corrupt your ethical principals, just don't be foolish enough to copy the small minded power seekers (humans do love to emulate the people the see around them). You can seek and hold power, and then use it to do good things. Is that harder? Probably, but I can't articulate a single reason it would be harder than doing good things without power, which most people already don't do. So don't be tricked into power being the thing that corrupts. Most people are just shitty, and very few have meaningful power; sample bias can be a bitch.

Oh no, but he was "making a point". Or he was young. He was "right" that it's bad to give up your info (so Zuck hammered home the point by scraping email contacts and using it to populate People You May Know. for your own good)

You didn't hear that out of Myspace or Friendster or anyone else that's trusted with information

Minimum threshold should be "People should be less forgiving of just giving away credentials but now that I have them I'll protect them with my life". Oh well. Apparently I'm just an idiot

He was just joking just like he was joking when he said he'd "fuck the Winklevosses in the ear"

^

He did build a massive bunker in Hawaii though. And a second one for his wife.

Their lackadaisical attitude towards scams and misleading information on their platforms is just utterly mind blowing. The other day I was suggested a post from an account of a beautiful girl with 150k followers which, upon investigation, is not a real person but a character generated with AI; whose profile links out to a bunch of sites trying to get people to pay for nude images or download nefarious apps like gambling, crypto, etc. Though not technically illegal, it’s a total moral hazard and is yet another nail in the coffin in our goal to maintain an equitable society.

The people that work at the company are smart, and I’m sure many of them are compassionate. I just don’t know what kind of people can sign off on product decisions like this that truly erode trust, community fabric, and make our world ultimately so much worse. It’s heartbreaking that someone like zuck is the one leading this initiative, you could pick any random person off the street and they would lead the company in a direction that was better for mankind.

> He just doesn't view others as human being

Well (allegedly) being a robot lizard would explain that. Neither are known for a lot of empathy towards human beings.

at some point we have to accept that money turns normal people into paychopaths along multiple trajectories. and tax the shit out of them to prevent the healthcare costs.

This is quite normal. Most billionaires spend their life surrounded by people who flatter them and indulge their every whim and agree with their every prejudice.

You don't know anything about him. He doesn't speak in public much and every single source on him has obvious incentives to lie.

Of course they are going to deny. Whether or not they actually did the things claimed, there is no universe where denying isn’t the best tactic. So their denials in and of themselves don’t mean anything. Every single company accused of wrongdoing publicly denies, all the way up to and including when they settle or are found to have actually done the wrongdoing.

Then take her to court for libel and prove it. Facebook execs have absolutely not earned the benefit of the doubt, here.

"Well he would, wouldn't he?"

— Mandy Rice-Davies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_he_would,_wouldn%27t_he%3...

Just like in Justice, where every suspect always say they are to blame when they did commit a crime.

(It's a great book, Mark and co. are more awful people we thought they were.)

There's a clear remedy if she lied about them in print – sue her for libel. And I can't imagine one of the richest corporations in the world would have trouble winning that lawsuit, if it actually were the case.

> There is only one way to

Zuckerberg et al. would actually prefer that we all think that, so that we just stop there and don't proceed to more-effective politics.

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/

Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes either. Complaining is one thing (and it's certainly valid to complain about Meta), but nothing's going to change if a lot of people still use their service. Sure, one person getting off of the Meta platform isn't going to do anything, but millions could have an effect - if only to give less power to the company.

I deleted my Meta account last year and haven't missed it.

'guillotine' > boycott

They teach this sort of literary analysis in high school. You should not take the words as a complete and unbiased retelling of history - just one point of view. Knowing who the author is, their role and possible biases helps place what they say (and choose not say) in context.

That's a quote from Corey Doctorow, not Sarah Wynn-Williams. I read her book. She was pretty careful to use your language (i.e., that it was offered, but not implemented, and was China-only data from what she related. Not that that is great either, of course...)

Her main allegations (that Facebook/Meta optimizes for profit at the expense of everything else) seem pretty unsurprising. I mean, given what has been observed, is this in any way controversial?

it was called project aldrain. multiple internal employees made company wide memos on internal platforms and resigned. they factually did the stuff your talking about.

Agreed. I don't like that you're downvoted for pointing this out as the language is very weasel-wordy (revealed to have? by who? what is all of Facebook?):

> Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook

Tbf, the book actually makes the right claim that it's Chinese user data, not all of Facebook so the article is to blame.

i think the article is saying that’s what the book claims, not whether it’s true or false.

> So, the author [Doctorow] is a liar who distorts facts to make for a more interesting article. Don’t waste your time listening to people with no integrity.

> What else that this article claims is distorted bullshit, I wonder?

E.g., "including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar." You can certainly accuse Facebook of being incompetent at monitoring and moderating speech in Myanmar but calling it "knowing" or "encouraging" is just a lie. There's plenty to criticize without lying, but the lying ruins your case.

The Chinese rejected the offer, so I’m not sure what your point is.

Here’s an article from the Atlantic that was sponsored by the Koch Brothers (so, good luck arguing one sided political bias!) on Zuck’s strategy for whitewashing censorship of political speech:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191115132324/https://www.theat...

Legality != morality