Well, that settles it - I'll have to buy a copy and give it a read.
Hey Mark, want people to not read it? How about you go donate a few hundred billion to the country and communities that supported you and your company from day 1, instead of avoiding taxation and building a doomsday bunker in New Zealand.
> Well, that settles it - I'll have to buy a copy and give it a read.
Honestly, I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be any different than all of the other “explosive tell-all memoirs” of the past. These books usually play into people’s desire to believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Then you read the book and realize that the author is trying really hard to paint themselves as an outsider despite being suspiciously involved with the people you’re supposed to dislike.
I suspect this lawsuit was predicted and possibly welcomed for the publicity. It’s amazing how many people are rushing to give this person money because they think it will hurt Meta, even though they’ll probably roll their eyes at gossipy memoir books like this. At least take a few seconds to watch the interviews with the author to realize what type of person you’re aligning with. If you’re expecting an anti-Zuckerberg hero you’re probably going to be disappointed when you realize you’ve been tricked into giving money and attention to another person who was gunning for the executive ranks of Meta using the same tricks and behaviors as everyone else.
That's all true but doesn't mean Meta should be able to quash the publishing and doesn't invalidate them wanting to buy the book to push back against corporate control of criticism.
>Honestly, I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be any different than all of the other “explosive tell-all memoirs” of the past. These books usually play into people’s desire to believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Then you read the book and realize that the author is trying really hard to paint themselves as an outsider despite being suspiciously involved with the people you’re supposed to dislike.
Ehh, I'll take more knowledge and accounts on the inside, even if the reporter themselves gleefully implemented them with no regrets. I'm not trying to find heroes, I just want to seek the truth. Tit for tat in my eyes, no altruistic party here.
I too am going to buy one and read, but genuinely curious what made you support Mark in the beginning of Facebook? Wasn’t he always known as a douchebag even in his university days?
I used Facebook back in 2005. I was in high school, it was cool.
In 2006, my friend (who went to Temple in Scarsdale, NY with the Zuckerberg family) told me in no uncertain terms that Mark was easily the biggest egotistical asshole he'd ever met - a highly intelligent but deeply unethical jerk and overall not a good person. I stopped using Facebook then and there.
I then found out that the Winklevoss twins were involved. I'm from their hometown. They are not good people. I haven't touched a Meta/FB product since then save for WhatsApp. My business has an IG page but I don't touch it.
In all seriousness (aside from all the comments stating they'd ordered it. Hey, I just did myself), it's interesting seeing Meta go after the employee but seemingly not make much of an effort to go after the publisher.
What would they hope to gain going after any of it so late anyway? Surely if their goal is to dissuade others from publishing tell-alls, the resulting publicity from their suits against this one would do the opposite? If they really wanted to stop the book, they should've gone after it early before publication, but it seems like they dropped the ball and are doing more damage to themselves trying to catch up.
Publishers have high priced lawyers on retainer (who will copy and paste the same winning brief they have served anytime they have been challenged before) - individuals are resource constrained.
I suspect the actual issue is that the publisher is not a party to whatever contract there exists between the author and Meta.
Unfortunately for free speech, it is no longer the case (if it ever was) that publishers have strong financial resources compared to an increasing number of those who want to hide things.
Exactly. The employee entered into an agreement with Meta, then broke the contractual agreement with this book.
This is the purpose of those agreements.
Meta has no such agreement with the publisher.
You can argue about the merits of such agreement separately, but there isn’t any mystery in this situation. Employee entered into an agreement with Meta and then broke the agreement. Meta is pursuing the terms of the agreement.
Contracts only bind the people who are party to them, so they couldn't go after the publisher on the same grounds. And there is a lot of case law around suing publishers so they probably know they would lose a lawsuit on other grounds (and maybe get an anti-slap ruling against them which could cost a lot of money).
One thing I don't understand though is I thought arbitration could only award monetary relief? I didn't realize that they could issue injunctions like this which I thought constituted an equitable remedy.
> seemingly not make much of an effort to go after the publisher.
That's a much, much harder case to make. Wynn-Williams can be reasonably held to be bound by the terms of her severance agreement and whatever NDA was part of it. The publisher is allowed to print whatever they want as long as they don't knowingly defame someone.
What might happen in the longer term is Meta suing the author (this case here is just an arbitration ruling) for proceeds from the book sales. NDAs have a hard time constraining speech, but they can absolutely constrain your ability to make money from speech. But again that's going to depend on the specific contract.
In my mind its one of those events that is hard to know the exact motives. Could be as simple as enforcing the standard of their contracts or as extreme as actual retribution.
On amazon.de the product title is "Careless People: The explosive memoir that Meta doesn't want you to read" but the book cover hasn't been changed yet.
I worked at Facebook and the amount of ex-FBers, especially OGs, speaking out against them on LinkedIn is staggering. I’ve debated doing a livestream of reading this book from start to finish, perhaps even in one sitting, because of what is happening here.
Assuming these are adobe digital edition (.ascm files), you can remove the DRM with calibre and the DeDRM plugin. You'll need the adobe key from an authorized machine first (a windows VM should work) and then copy the key over to the Linux install of calibre. This is what I do on my Linux machine
Readit News
For example,
https://www.thefp.com/p/meet-sarah-wynn-williams-facebooks
Meta published a response to the book that only alleges the author's claims are "old" and does not suggest they are false.
https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Sarah-Wynn-W...
If the claims are false and defamatory, then why not sue the author for defamation.
In the book, the author suggests she was harassed by two famous Facebook managers and then terminated when she complained.
Apparently the book is a top seller on Amazon. Perhaps it does not need promotion by the author.
The author has also filed a whistleblower complaint at the SEC re: the China issue.
As a longtime HN reader I recall that Zuckerberg was a favorite of PG. The "ideal founder" or something like that.
Dead Comment
Hey Mark, want people to not read it? How about you go donate a few hundred billion to the country and communities that supported you and your company from day 1, instead of avoiding taxation and building a doomsday bunker in New Zealand.
Honestly, I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be any different than all of the other “explosive tell-all memoirs” of the past. These books usually play into people’s desire to believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Then you read the book and realize that the author is trying really hard to paint themselves as an outsider despite being suspiciously involved with the people you’re supposed to dislike.
I suspect this lawsuit was predicted and possibly welcomed for the publicity. It’s amazing how many people are rushing to give this person money because they think it will hurt Meta, even though they’ll probably roll their eyes at gossipy memoir books like this. At least take a few seconds to watch the interviews with the author to realize what type of person you’re aligning with. If you’re expecting an anti-Zuckerberg hero you’re probably going to be disappointed when you realize you’ve been tricked into giving money and attention to another person who was gunning for the executive ranks of Meta using the same tricks and behaviors as everyone else.
Great point. You're probably spot-on.
In 2006, my friend (who went to Temple in Scarsdale, NY with the Zuckerberg family) told me in no uncertain terms that Mark was easily the biggest egotistical asshole he'd ever met - a highly intelligent but deeply unethical jerk and overall not a good person. I stopped using Facebook then and there.
I then found out that the Winklevoss twins were involved. I'm from their hometown. They are not good people. I haven't touched a Meta/FB product since then save for WhatsApp. My business has an IG page but I don't touch it.
What would they hope to gain going after any of it so late anyway? Surely if their goal is to dissuade others from publishing tell-alls, the resulting publicity from their suits against this one would do the opposite? If they really wanted to stop the book, they should've gone after it early before publication, but it seems like they dropped the ball and are doing more damage to themselves trying to catch up.
Unfortunately for free speech, it is no longer the case (if it ever was) that publishers have strong financial resources compared to an increasing number of those who want to hide things.
Why? As The Fine Article points out, the publisher wasn't party to the agreement they're trying to enforce.
This is the purpose of those agreements.
Meta has no such agreement with the publisher.
You can argue about the merits of such agreement separately, but there isn’t any mystery in this situation. Employee entered into an agreement with Meta and then broke the agreement. Meta is pursuing the terms of the agreement.
One thing I don't understand though is I thought arbitration could only award monetary relief? I didn't realize that they could issue injunctions like this which I thought constituted an equitable remedy.
That's a much, much harder case to make. Wynn-Williams can be reasonably held to be bound by the terms of her severance agreement and whatever NDA was part of it. The publisher is allowed to print whatever they want as long as they don't knowingly defame someone.
What might happen in the longer term is Meta suing the author (this case here is just an arbitration ruling) for proceeds from the book sales. NDAs have a hard time constraining speech, but they can absolutely constrain your ability to make money from speech. But again that's going to depend on the specific contract.
The publisher loves this because they get the publicity and they aren’t the target of the broken contract dispute.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473
Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her book about Facebook (engadget.com)
285 points by SanjayMehta 4 days ago | 105 comments
https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
Dead Comment