Ex-Facebook Employee Is Blocked From Promoting Tell-All Memoir

The former Facebook employee who authored a tell-all memoir about the company has been barred by an arbitrator from further promoting or distributing the book.

The move, first reported by The New York Times, is the latest turn in an ongoing saga surrounding the book, Careless People, which came out this week, and which Meta has described as being a “mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.”

The company, which has forcefully denied the allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation contained in the book, sought an emergency hearing with an arbitrator to prevent the book from being released last week. Meta charged the book’s author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, of violating a non-disparagement agreement that she signed in exchange for severance when she was fired from the company in 2017.

On Wednesday, an emergency arbitrator sided with Meta, writing that the company had “established a likelihood of success on the merits.” The arbitrator’s order blocks Wynn-Williams from selling or promoting the book, and from “amplifying or repeating” any “disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental comments.” The order also requires Wynn-Williams to retract any disparaging comments “to the extent within [her] control.”

In a statement on Threads, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said, “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.” Stone said Wynn-Williams “deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years.”

Since the book was released, multiple current and former employees have come out to contest its accuracy and to defend the executives portrayed in it. Some of the subjects mentioned in Careless People have also said they were not contacted for fact-checking before its publication.

A spokesperson for a public relations firm representing Wynn-Williams didn’t respond to Vanity Fair‘s request for comment about the arbitration order. Macmillan Publishers, which owns Careless People publisher Flatiron Books, told Vanity Fair the order “has no impact on Macmillan,” and the spokesperson said the company planned to “continue to support and promote” the book.

“However, we are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement,” the spokesperson added. “To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims within Careless People. The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this.”