Meta has obtained an emergency ruling blocking whistleblower and former employee Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting her memoir Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. In other news, have you seen Barbra Streisand's house?
The International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) handed down the emergency arbitration ruling on Wednesday, finding that Meta was likely to succeed in its case against Wynn-Williams for breach of contract. Specifically, Meta alleges that Wynn-Williams violated the non-disparagement agreement she signed as an employee.
"The Emergency Arbitrator finds that, after reviewing the briefs and hearing oral argument, [Meta] has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams, and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief," the arbitrator wrote in his ruling.
As such, the ICDR ruled that Wynn-Williams is temporarily prohibited from promoting Careless People or further distributing audio and electronic versions of it. She is also temporarily barred from making any "disparaging, critical, or otherwise detrimental comments" about Meta, and has been instructed to retract any such comments she has previously made.
This does not mean that Wynn-Williams' claims in Careless People are false, nor that they are true. It simply means that the ICDR considers it likely that she violated her contract by sharing them.
Wynn-Williams was previously Meta's director of global public policy, with Careless People covering her time at the company from 2011 to 2017. The memoir paints a grossly unflattering picture of the tech giant, including allegations of sexual harassment and claims that Facebook ignored internal concerns about its impact on democracy and human rights.
In its review of the book, The New York Times called Careless People an "insider account of a company that she says was run by status-hungry and self-absorbed leaders… even as Facebook became a vector for disinformation campaigns and cozied up to authoritarian regimes."
This week it was reported that Wynn-Williams also filed a whistleblower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April, alleging that Facebook (now Meta) misled investors about its efforts to enter China. According to the complaint, in 2015 Facebook developed a censorship system intended for use by the Chinese government in an effort to enter the Chinese market.
Meta ultimately fired Wynn-Williams in 2017, which she claims was retaliation for her sexual harassment complaints. Meta maintains that it fired Wynn-Williams for "poor performance and toxic behavior" and that while it had been interested in operating in China, they ultimately did not come to any agreement with the country's government. Still, this doesn't mean that Meta didn't try.
"[Careless People] is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives," Meta said in a statement shared with several publications.
Mashable has reached out to Meta for comment.
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism was published this week by Macmillan.
