With Careless People: A Story of Where I used to Work, Facebook’s former director of global public policy Sarah Wynn-Williams provides a shocking but fascinating exposure of Facebook’s utterly dystopian dysfunctionality.
Careless People reveals that everything is far, far worse than we ever could have suspected, despite all the past investigative reporting, international hearings and other recent books on Facebook/Meta’s failings. This is a horror scream-fest for anyone who cares about democracy, accountability and decency.
A former diplomat, Wynn-Williams offers a darkly funny page-turner that shows how insanely powerful, detached and, yes, evil these wealthy tech overlords and their companies have become. With her insider view and knowledge of the company’s catastrophic global affairs manoeuvrings, she provides a convincing immediacy compared to more distanced journalistic or tech-perspective books about Meta.
She spent seven years within then-Facebook’s management team, working closely with Zuckerberg, his “lean-in” first lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg (now departed), and Republican operative and current Meta president of global affairs Joel Kaplan.
‘I found out the rugby player I’m seeing is four-timing me, and I am more attracted to him than ever’
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At home with Brendan Courtney by the sea in Wicklow: ‘I wanted to simplify my life’
Wealth gap tensions: ‘My friends don’t have to budget like me. A round of cocktails scares the s**t out of me’
They come across as despicably vile – an understatement, given the bizarre, predatory actions of Sandberg and Kaplan, ignored by the company even when witnessed incidents are raised with Facebook lawyers. Sandberg’s women-supportive lean-in spiel is gutted by Wynn-Williams’s recounting of Sandberg’s imperious selfishness and indifferent neglect of women working for her. If this wasn’t a well-lawyered book from someone with Wynn-Williams’s past role, many of these jaw-dropping stories would even stretch credibility (Meta disputes the allegations).
Former taoiseach Enda Kenny pops up in a Davos anecdote. Kenny is eager to explain a new planned tax wheeze that will benefit Facebook, and hears out Sandberg’s plea for a soft regulator.
Some of this has been reported in the past. But here, I think New Zealander Wynn-Williams doesn’t get Irish plámás. Kenny’s adept charm offensive probably wasn’t all about them.
[ ‘It’s time to move on’: Unease is growing among my friends in the tech sectorOpens in new window ]
The final chapters are the most serious. Wynn-Williams exposes Facebook’s lethal ineptitude in Myanmar, where platform exploitation in part led to brutal attacks and thousands of deaths. In explosive revelations on Facebook’s Chinese operations, she lays bare the company’s shocking anti-democratic wooing and intended accommodation of demands to enable government-led surveillance of Chinese platform users. Most of this is newly revelatory, and raises serious legal, governance and accountability questions.
There’s much more to appal. If you want to understand Meta, and the tech and political zeitgeist, don’t miss it.
