Former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams has been blocked from promoting her tell-all book “Careless People” by an emergency arbitrator.
The arbitrator, appointed because of the 2017 severance agreement between the author and Meta, found that Meta is likely to succeed in its claim that Ms. Wynn-Williams violated a contractual non-disparagement clause and “that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief.”
Under the interim order, the author is forbidden from making disparaging comments about Meta or its employees regardless of whether she thinks those comments are true, prohibited from further promoting the book, ordered to stop the publication and distribution of “Careless People” to whatever extent she can, and ordered to retract previous disparaging comments.
Ms. Wynn-Williams, formerly the director of global public policy at Meta, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the New York Post.
Macmillan, whose imprint Flatiron Books is publishing “Careless People,” was not bound by the arbitrator’s order and plans to keep publishing the book.
“We are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement. … The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this,” Macmillan spokesperson Marlena Bittner told The New York Times.
Macmillan also said the order did not address claims made by Ms. Wynn-Williams in the book. The claims include allegations of sexual harassment against executive Joel Kaplan and that founder Mark Zuckerberg helped the People’s Republic of China create censorship tools in an attempt to get Meta apps unblocked in the country, according to the New York Post.
Meta has vociferously denied the claims.
“This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published. This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who … avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote on social media Wednesday.
A lawyer for Ms. Wynn-Williams told NBC News Tuesday that “the events that led to her departure from Meta are described in detail in the memoir, and while Meta’s statements are trying to mislead the public, the book speaks for itself.”
Ms. Wynn-Williams told Business Insider Thursday that Meta is “trying to smear me and convince people not to read the book. People should read the book. The truth is in the book. They can make up their own minds. I stand by everything in the book. It’s true, and that’s what the focus should be on.”
