Careless People

I'll be upfront about my reasons for this post. I have virtually nothing new to say. Instead I have only outrage. My negative opinions about the ruthless and morally banktupt leadership of Facebook have been accumulating for many years. They have been crystallised by reading the recent memoir Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams in which she tells of her experience as a Facebook employee.

Wynn-Williams was an ambitious and idealistic New Zealander. As she tells it she wanted to change the world and early in her career she worked at the UN where she was involved in environmental work - very much influenced by her upbringing in NZ. Later she moved to the NZ Embassy in Washington but she soon found that New Zealand's small footprint in the corridors of world power frustrated her idealism.

In 2009 she visualised an opportunity to move to an organisation which was destined to be a much more powerful player in world affairs. At that time Facebook was still a relatively new company but Wynn-Williams saw clearly its huge potential to change the world. She formed the ambition to work for the company and she also (remarkably) had a clear idea about her role in the company - to be a big picture diplomat helping Facebook contribute to social issues around the world.

Amazingly, after a two year campaign where she had to persuade the company that they needed such an employee, she was offered the newly created job of Manager of Global Social Policy.

Most of the book is about the next 6 years she spent working for Facebook until she was fired. This part of the book is completely damning of the company executive, particularly Mark Zuckerberg. The company denies all her allegations dismissing them as either out of date or untrue. Who should we believe, or does the truth lie somewhere in between?

My firm opinion is that Wynn-Williams should be believed. There are several reasons. To begin with her narrative is both internally consistent and it agrees with what I have observed over the years. Next she has the support of many others (such as Brooke Oberwetter and the very many corroborative comments in this post). Then there are the several occasion that Zuckerberg has appeared before the US Congress where his bluster has always been unconvincing; his modus operandi is to admit to some minor offence for which he apologises profusely, and sidestep admissions of more serious actions. Well before I read Wynn-Williams memoir I had formed the opinion that he was a scion of privilege who felt entitled to act without conscience; and this book reinforces that opinion by citing numerous examples of this conduct.

Zuckerberg and Facebook tried their utmost to suppress publication of Careless People. They failed but the courts prevented Wynn-Williams from publicising her book (what sort of crazy judgement is that?). However their efforts only drew attention to the book once it was published and presumably helped to drive it to the top of the New York Times best-sellers list.

Read this book. It is an appalling example of the way big tech companies exploit their customers.