In a memoir set to be revealed Tuesday, a former Fb worker lays out allegations of misconduct on the firm, together with claims of sexual harassment and what she says have been incomplete statements to Congress about Fb’s relationship with China.
Sarah Wynn-Williams says within the ebook and in an unique interview with NBC Information that she confronted retaliation from the corporate after she reported sexual harassment by her boss, Joel Kaplan, who on the time was a vice chairman for world public coverage. Kaplan has since develop into chief world affairs officer, serving as the corporate’s public face in Washington and different world capitals.
Meta, which owns Fb, stated in an announcement Sunday that the ebook consists of “false accusations about our executives.” The corporate confirmed that Wynn-Williams accused Kaplan of sexual harassment, however it stated an investigation cleared him in 2017.
Wynn-Williams was fired that yr. She stated she believes the choice was retaliation after she complained about Kaplan. Meta says she was fired for “poor efficiency and poisonous habits.” Elliot Schrage, who was one in every of Wynn-Williams’ supervisors, stated in an announcement that he fired her “based mostly on her repeated failures” to deal with efficiency issues resembling “indecision, shifting focus, and failure to execute on hiring” on the coverage management crew.
Wynn-Williams is a former director of world public coverage, making her one of many highest-ranking former Fb staff to come back ahead as a critic of the corporate. Employed in 2011, when the corporate’s public coverage crew was small, she managed a rising workers and oversaw authorities relations for complete continents, together with Asia and South America. She reported to company vice presidents and had direct contact with Chief Government Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, then the chief working officer.
Wynn-Williams additionally alleges that Sandberg crossed skilled strains along with her and one other worker in a approach that made her uncomfortable.
The memoir covers the six-plus years when Wynn-Williams, a former New Zealand diplomat, met international officers and accompanied Zuckerberg and different prime executives as they met in particular person with presidents and prime ministers.
Within the memoir, “Careless Individuals,” to be revealed by Flatiron Books, she alleges that Fb ignored inside alarms about potential injury to human rights and democracy because it pursued unrelenting development, together with in China, throughout an important interval within the firm’s historical past.
She stated within the interview that she was talking out as a result of she sees Meta repeating the identical errors.
“We’re in a second now the place expertise CEOs and political leaders around the globe are becoming a member of forces and compounding their affect, compounding their energy, and that is received penalties for everyone,” she stated. “Individuals want to know what has truly gone on.”
Along with the memoir, Wynn-Williams says, she filed a whistleblower criticism final yr with the Securities and Change Fee, alleging that Meta misled buyers. NBC Information has reviewed the criticism. An SEC spokesperson stated Friday that the fee doesn’t touch upon potential investigations into whistleblower submissions or actions taken in response to them.
Meta criticized the memoir and rejected her accusations.
“This can be a mixture of out-of-date and beforehand reported claims concerning the firm and false accusations about our executives,” it stated in an announcement.
The corporate additionally accused Wynn-Williams of being “an anti-Fb activist.” Since she left Fb, she has advocated publicly for the corporate’s shareholders to undertake new insurance policies concerning sexual harassment and China.
“Whistleblower standing protects communications to the federal government, not disgruntled activists making an attempt to promote books,” the corporate stated.
By means of her legal professional, Wynn-Williams stated Meta was “making an attempt to mislead the general public” by means of its statements about her and the ebook.
In anticipation of the ebook, Meta filed an emergency request for a listening to earlier than an arbitrator Saturday, arguing that Wynn-Williams had violated a nondisparagement settlement and looking for “injunctive aid barring disparagement.” Jonathan Cohn, a Meta lawyer, wrote in a letter to the writer, Flatiron Books, on Friday that the ebook’s advertising and marketing steered it will comprise “overheated, false, and doubtlessly defamatory allegations,” and he requested for an opportunity to make revisions.
Flatiron Books defended its course of, saying in an announcement: “This ebook is a primary particular person narrative account of what the writer herself witnessed. We totally vetted the ebook. We’ve no obligation to present Meta or anybody else the chance to close down her story.” It additionally accused Meta of making an attempt to “institute a gag order to silence our writer.”
An individual who seems within the ebook, former Meta spokesperson Debbie Frost, broadly criticized its contents Sunday on the Meta-owned social media app Threads, saying that “a bunch of the tales are exaggerated or simply did not occur.” A second Meta worker who labored with Wynn-Williams, Tessa Lyons, now an Instagram vice chairman, stated on Threads that the ebook was “dishonest and distorted.”
The ebook chronicles what Wynn-Williams describes as Zuckerberg’s halting evolution from a software-focused engineer and political novice into an govt who micromanaged content material moderation choices about far-flung international locations and regarded his personal run for president. Wynn-Williams cites firsthand expertise from conferences and quotes from technique memos, emails and dozens of different company paperwork, a lot of which she offered to NBC Information.
The ebook is being revealed two months after Zuckerberg promoted Kaplan to be Meta’s chief liaison to the Trump administration and different governments. Kaplan was White Home deputy chief of workers for former President George W. Bush.
In 2016, as a part of an electronic mail chain about Wynn-Williams’ U.S. citizenship check, Kaplan requested her whether or not the check included the phrase “soiled sanchez,” a sexual slang phrase and racial slur, in accordance with the ebook and a duplicate of the e-mail seen by NBC Information.
Wynn-Williams additionally described Kaplan’s asking her after childbirth “the place are you bleeding from?” and telling her at an organization occasion that she seemed “sultry.” She writes that she thought-about Kaplan’s habits to be inappropriate and that she believed the investigation in 2017 was unfairly turned again on her.
A member of Wynn-Williams’ household, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they feared skilled repercussions, stated in an interview Sunday that they keep in mind Wynn-Williams telling them in 2017 concerning the “bleeding” query and the “sultry” remark. This particular person stated Wynn-Williams was uncomfortable on the time with Kaplan’s habits.
Meta stated in its assertion Sunday that the investigation “decided she made deceptive and unfounded allegations of harassment.” Meta stated the investigation concerned 17 witness interviews over 42 days and that the corporate reviewed each doc she offered.
Kaplan didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Wynn-Williams writes that she was additionally uncomfortable with how Sandberg crossed what Wynn-Williams thought-about skilled boundaries. Sandberg, the corporate’s No. 2 govt, has been heralded as a champion of ladies, particularly ladies in enterprise, due to her success and her 2013 ebook, “Lean In,” and she or he has advocated a zero-tolerance coverage for sexual harassment. Sandberg wrote a second ebook, “Choice B,” after her husband, Dave Goldberg, died all of a sudden in 2015.
In accordance with Wynn-Williams and the SEC whistleblower criticism, Sandberg repeatedly insisted that she be part of Sandberg in sharing a mattress on a personal jet as they traveled from Davos, Switzerland, to California in January 2016. Wynn-Williams, who was pregnant on the time, writes that she thought-about the demand to be inappropriate and mortifying and that she refused. She writes that Sandberg resented her refusal and instructed her on the finish of the flight, “It is best to have gotten into mattress.” She writes that, later, she felt marginalized by Sandberg at work.
An individual who was on the airplane stated in an interview Sunday that they recall everybody on the airplane, together with Sandberg and different workers members, encouraging Wynn-Williams to get some sleep. This particular person stated they did so as a result of Wynn-Williams was visibly pregnant and so they have been involved about her well being, not for some other cause. This particular person, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, additionally stated they recall the airplane as having a number of beds.
One other one that knew Wynn-Williams on the time, who additionally spoke on the situation of anonymity, stated Wynn-Williams instructed them about what occurred on the airplane not lengthy afterward.
Within the ebook and within the SEC criticism, Wynn-Williams writes that Sandberg additional created an uncomfortable working surroundings when she instructed a distinct worker to buy $13,000 value of lingerie for Sandberg and the worker. NBC Information has reviewed copies of these emails. The worker declined to remark.
Sandberg, by means of her household basis, declined to touch upon the memoir. She stepped down as Meta’s chief working officer in 2022 and left the corporate’s board of administrators final yr.
Wynn-Williams is the most recent whistleblower to emerge from a decade of scandals at Meta involving the corporate’s impression on elections, violent polarization, teenage psychological well being and privateness. Frances Haugen, a former Fb product supervisor, testified earlier than Congress in 2021 after she launched paperwork displaying inside dissent over firm insurance policies.
The memoir lands at a delicate time for Meta because it stares down regulators across the globe. The corporate is locked in antitrust fights in the US, with the European Union and in India, whereas Zuckerberg has pivoted Meta’s politics to the proper to align extra carefully with President Donald Trump.
Meta, which additionally owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is pouring huge sums of cash into the worldwide race to develop synthetic intelligence — a contest that additionally entails China.
Wynn-Williams arrived on the firm in 2011 because it was making its debut on the world stage. The Arab Spring protests fueled partially by social media had simply begun, and Fb didn’t have established relationships with most governments or worldwide organizations. The scrutiny Fb would obtain for inflaming tensions that contributed to massacres in locations resembling Myanmar and Sri Lanka was nonetheless years away.
Her background match what Fb lacked: A local of New Zealand and a lawyer and a diplomat by coaching, she had labored for the New Zealand authorities at its embassy in Washington and at United Nations headquarters in New York.
However whereas she joined the corporate with optimism about its mission, she stated, the alternatives made by executives, together with Zuckerberg and Sandberg, ultimately soured her.
“They actually might have chosen to do all of it otherwise and repair a lot of what is been damaging about Fb,” she writes. As a substitute, she calls the app “an extremely priceless instrument for probably the most autocratic, oppressive regimes.”
Wynn-Williams writes that persuading Zuckerberg to satisfy worldwide leaders was a problem. An evening owl who most popular carrying T-shirts, he would not often take conferences earlier than midday and didn’t need to put on clothes acceptable for the events, she writes. Requested at one level whether or not he needed to satisfy the prime minister of New Zealand, Wynn-Williams says, Zuckerberg brusquely dismissed the thought — not realizing the politician was standing subsequent to him.
Within the memoir, Wynn-Williams describes Zuckerberg as fumbling his approach by means of numerous encounters: getting snubbed by the prime minister of Canada, refusing to organize earlier than he met the president-elect of Indonesia, arriving late for an occasion with the president of Colombia, ad-libbing a part of a speech to the U.N. Normal Meeting and getting turned down when he requested Chinese language President Xi Jinping to call his unborn youngster.
“Initially, he wouldn’t desire a briefing longer than a textual content message,” Wynn-Williams stated within the interview. However by the top of her tenure, she stated, “he could not get sufficient details about politics and the way it labored.”
Extra lately, Zuckerberg has not often appeared in public with world leaders. Although he attended Trump’s inauguration in January and hosted a celebration to rejoice the occasion, he’s extra prone to be seen with combined martial arts fighters or well-known musicians.
The ebook consists of anecdotes that Wynn-Williams says present snippets of Zuckerberg’s persona, gathered whereas she traveled with him: his perception that Andrew Jackson was the best American president, his curiosity in accumulating wine from the Jackson period within the 1830s, his need to have a “tribe” of kids and his professed ignorance that Fb staff have been letting him win on the board sport Settlers of Catan.
“You do not need to win that approach?” she quotes herself asking Zuckerberg throughout one sport.
“I am not profitable that approach,” she says he responded.
Wynn-Williams writes that she believes a lot of Meta’s errors in recent times might have been prevented. She writes that Fb didn’t act on warnings earlier than 2016 about how politicians have been utilizing it to sway voters with half-truths.
Wynn-Williams says Fb is outlined by “deadly carelessness,” claiming executives failed to reply appropriately to data that Fb infected world tensions and instability. She cites Fb’s position in fueling ethnic hatred and massacres, together with in Myanmar, the place Fb has acknowledged that it didn’t take down posts inciting violence although the posts violated its phrases of service. Wynn-Williams stated the corporate had dragged its toes for years on hiring workers members to assist reasonable content material from Myanmar, the positioning of what the U.N. calls a genocide.
The memoir goes into depth a couple of main query that hung over Fb on the time: whether or not it will do enterprise in China, the place the federal government had banned its apps as a part of its huge system of censorship. Fb known as its multiyear effort, beginning in 2014, to steer the Chinese language authorities to permit using their apps “Venture Aldrin,” after astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Varied components of the trouble — together with the constructing of China-specific censorship instruments — have leaked over time.
Wynn-Williams cites or quotes from dozens of inside information concerning the mission, a few of which have been reported Sunday by The Washington Put up.
She writes that Zuckerberg dedicated to the thought of re-entering China in 2014 as a result of he needed to develop Fb’s person base, and she or he writes that Fb had little regard for the concessions it will must make to the Chinese language authorities.
“There isn’t any acknowledgment at all the ethical complexity of working in an authoritarian nation that surveils its personal residents and does not enable free speech,” she writes.
“China is, in Mark’s eyes, simply the top of a to-do checklist, the final main mission to deal with,” she provides.
In a collection of Slack screenshots seen by NBC Information, Fb staff in 2017 focus on constructing particular instruments to current to China’s web regulator, the Our on-line world Administration of China. The workers focus on checks they might carry out for the regulators to construct belief in Fb’s skill to run content-blocking instruments.
Their work is echoed in a number of different inside paperwork, seen by NBC Information, that embody Fb staff discussing the specifics of what they’re constructing to indicate the Our on-line world Administration. Fb staff spoke with Chinese language regulators about how a censorship system might work and about what Fb wanted to do to win approval to launch its apps there, in accordance with the ebook and paperwork seen by NBC Information.
Wynn-Williams says that the following yr, when U.S. lawmakers requested Fb about its China plans, the corporate shared lower than it knew. Fb submitted unsigned written testimony in 2018 to a few Senate committees saying it was “not able to know” how China would search to use its legal guidelines to a theoretical Fb China service — with out mentioning its years of analysis and negotiations.
Zuckerberg stated in 2019 that he had largely given up the thought of working apps in China, saying in an handle about free expression that Fb and China “might by no means come to settlement on what it will take for us to function there.”
However Meta does make large quantities of cash from China. Meta stated final yr that, in 2023, 10% of its income got here from China-based advertisers making an attempt to succeed in individuals who use Meta’s apps — a determine that equals about $1 billion a month.
