SAN FRANCISCO: Face­book parent company Meta is seeking to silence a former employee who has made scandalous allegations in a new tell-all book, obtaining a ruling to temporarily bar her from promoting the memoir or bad-mouthing the tech giant.

In “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism,” released on Tuesday, Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.

Her book includes claims of sexual harassment by longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta’s international affairs team early this year. She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative China market by appeasing government censors there.

“The suggestion was that as part of the negotiations for the company to enter into China, the data of users in Hong Kong could be put in play,” Wynn-Williams said in an interview with NPR.

An idea was to flag content in Hong Kong or Taiwan that went “viral” and refer it to a censorship body for review, according to Wynn-Williams. Meta quickly took the matter to arbitration, contending the book violates a non-disparagement contract signed by Wynn-Williams when she worked with the company’s global affairs team.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2025