Hiltzik: Meta makes a big favorite denunciator

I admit that I did not intend to read “Careless people”, the revealing memories of the former Facebook executive, Sarah Wynn-Williams. I thought I knew everything I needed to find out about the history of the business and its leader, Mark Zuckerberg, to follow him for a better part of the decade.

But then Zuckerberg, whose company changed its name to Meta platforms in 2021, moved to delete the book by obtaining The decision of an arbitrator Prohibiting Wynn-Williams from promoting her herself, whether by a tour of books or other means, or to repeat the so-called “disparaged, criticism or otherwise prejudicial” comments about her or his business in the book.

It should be obvious that for the meta, it counts as a pyrrhic victory. The referee’s decision does not apply to Macmillan, who published the book on March 11 and can now sit down and collect the sale price on a book that has shot n ° 1 in the Amazon’s political and social sciences section without the need to raise awareness of public relations. (This is where I downloaded it.) Zuckerberg did his job for this.

For technological aficionados, the whole case evokes “the Streisand effect”, in which an effort to remove something online only makes it more visible. (The term, invented by Mike Masnick from Techdirt, derives from Barbra Streisand’s attempt in 2003 to delete An aerial photograph of his Domaine Malibu Caught as part of a coastal investigation, which rather brought the photo to the attention of the world.)

Part of Meta’s response to the book seems contradictory or misleading. The company calls the book “a mixture of obsolete complaints and previously reported on the company and false accusations on our leaders”.

He expressed A verification of four -page facts of the book which denigrates the ostensibly “news” claims of Wynn-Williams by affirming that they were mainly published above, and even usefully provides links to original relationships. Out of seven “new” complaints addressed in the factory auditor, Meta said that the company “refuted” only two.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the referee’s decision with An article on Meta’s Twitter application, Threadsdeclaring that the decision “claims” that the “false book and defamatory should never have been published”.

This implies that the referee found problems with the content of the book, but in fact, the referee did not add to the veracity of his content at all-he only judged that his publication had violated the conditions of denunciation of Wynn-Williams of Wynn-Williams. Wynn-Williams chose not to participate in the hearing of the arbitrator planned for this issue, he noted.

I asked Stone why there was a starting agreement, since Meta says that Wynn-Williams was dismissed for “poor performance and toxic behavior”. He said that the departure agreements were usual in the company even when an employee had been dismissed.

New arbitration procedures must take place, perhaps to determine if Wynn-Williams owes the remuneration of the company for having violated the agreement. A spokesperson for the author did not respond to my request for comments.

Now in the book itself. Most of the coverage that she has won since the referee’s decision is focused on certain almost salaces claims on Sheryl Sandberg, the n ° 2 of Zuckerberg, who left the company in 2022, and its representation of Zuckerberg as a sweatless Doodus who wanted to turn away with the heads of state but who was sick in the act. But in many ways, these are the least interesting parts of the book.

“Careless people” (The title alludes to the description of F. Scott Fitzgerald du Tom and Daisy Buchanan frivolous and arrogant in “The Great Gatsby”) is explicitly presented as a memory, so it develops as a vision of fly on the wall of early evolution of Facebook in a global phenomenon.

Wynn-Williams, a New Zealander who went from a diplomatic position to a job helping Facebook managing his international contacts for six years, describes himself as playing a key role in a certain number of executive decisions while the company tried to reconcile with its growing global influence.

Wynn -Williams says that despite Zuckerberg’s inspiring speech on Facebook’s ability to build online communities, his strategy invariably aimed to develop his business – whether by calling on new user cohorts, no matter how much he could have geographic territories, regardless of the concessions he could make for dictatorial governments.

She applies this lesson to the role of Facebook in the propagation of “disinformation and train fishing” of the first presidential campaign of Trump. “If anything, Facebook rewards external candidates who publish inflammatory content that stimulates commitment,” she writes. “Indignation is a lucrative company for Facebook.”

The company’s appetite for new users brings Wynn-Williams to Myanmar, which Facebook considers an unexploited market of 60 million potential users. In the capital, not Pyi Taw, she works to obtain a meeting with the country’s military junta, who prohibited Facebook.

Finally, the prohibition is lifted, but Facebook becomes the bearer of the speech of hatred intended for the Muslim Rohingya minority of the country – theoretically in violation of the company’s boosted community standards. Stimulated in part by Facebook publications, the anti-line campaign has been Telé the genocide by human rights groups.

Meta can hardly dispute the general points of Wynn-Williams on his indifference to the way in which he was used by the Myanmar authorities; In 2018, the company itself recognized An independent survey on its role This concluded that “we did not do enough to prevent our platform from being used to foment and encourage offline violence”. Meta replied: “We agree that we can and should do more.”

It was a sterling example of the company’s well -documented habit of violating social standards and its own standards, to apologize (and promise to do better in the future) after the consequences are known.

Wynn-Williams also reports the efforts of the company to shape its platform to please the Chinese regime so that it gives Meta access to its massive population. It repeats an assertion that the company has developed an application that facilitates censorship in China.

Meta does not deny that in its verification of the facts but simply quotes an article in the New York Times which revealed the existence of such an application but has not found any indication that it had been offered to the Chinese regime. Verification of the facts notes that Meta still does not work in China.

Wynn-Williams’ book has a characteristic common to all memories. Its representation of its role on Facebook can be exaggerated or not. Meta told me several declarations and Online publications by current and old employees Who say they worked with her (some are mentioned in the book) and who dispute her accounts.

For example, Dex Tourricke, who was director of communications during Wynn-Williams time on Facebook, specifically denies his assertion that He deliberately let Zuckerberg win to a board game. In his thread post, Tourricke admits that for years he told people that Zuckerberg had cheated in the game – although he returned him to rent Zuckerberg for his “ruthlessness”.

In the story of Wynn-Williams, she is often a lonely voice of reason among the higher levels of Facebook. At first, managers debating companies’ initiatives could make the Facebook brand worldwide to settle for an initiative aimed at supporting the army. Earning, Wynn-Williams tells them that it should not be fine in each country that Facebook wants to penetrate. “Even if you leave countries whose soldiers have supported dictators,” she says, “do you need me to explain why the Vietnamese do not like the American army?” The idea is abandoned.

The representation of Sandberg by Wynn-Williams is certainly three-dimensional. At first, she was fascinated by the power of Sandberg’s stars: “She turns on charisma and that transforms her from a normal -year -old woman to someone really glamorous. I swear – her hair, her eyes, her makeup, her skin – suddenly she shines positively … radiating confidence and charm. “

Later, especially after the 2013 publication of Sandberg’s book “Lean in”, the image turns. Sandberg’s book is promoted as a guide for women trying to prosper in the professional world dominated by men despite their responsibilities at home; This encourages them to assert themselves and, among other things, openly speak of sexism in the workplace. On Facebook, writes Wynn-Williams, she will see these precepts “tested, chewed and thrown aside”.

Sandberg becomes more of someone’s quintessence with the proverbial iron whim. According to the book, she decides to make Facebook sponsor a global initiative of organ donation. Warned by Wynn-Williams of obstacles which include religious scruples in certain countries, laws against organ trafficking in others and confidentiality problems elsewhere, Sandberg says with indignation: “Do you want to tell me that if my four-year-old child died and that the only thing that saves him was a new kidney, that I could not fly to Mexico and putting one in my handbag?

“It’s true,” replied Wynn-Williams, a moment she says opens a flaw between her and Sandberg.

Sandberg refused through a representative to give me an answer to the book record.

Going to the absolute truth of the Wynn-Williams account may never be possible. It is the disadvantage when a denunciator becomes public. In the most general terms, however, the “reckless people” sound true.

What one could call the anti -social behavior of the META social media society was presented in the proceedings of government agencies and official surveys, many of which indicate the indifference of the company to regulatory surveillance.

And that brings us back to the fundamental question of Meta’s campaign to remove the “reckless people”: given how much is already public on his behavior, and how much the history of Wynn-Williams is already published on what Meta already recognizes, why did he disturb?