Meta Platforms on Wednesday won an emergency arbitration ruling to temporarily stop promotion of the tell-all book “Careless People” by a former employee, according to a copy of the ruling published by the social media company.
The book by Meta’s former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams, was called by the New York Times book review “an ugly, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world,” and its leading executives, including chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, former chief operating Oofficer Sheryl Sandberg and chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan.
Meta will suffer “immediate and irreparable loss” in the absence of an emergency relief, the American Arbitration Association’s emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowen said in a ruling after a hearing, which Ms Wynn-Williams did not attend.
Book publisher Macmillan attended and argued it was not bound by the arbitration agreement, which was part of a severance agreement between the employee and company.
The ruling says Ms Wynn-Williams should stop promoting the book and, to the extent she could, stop further publication. It did not order any action by the publisher.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said in a post on Threads: “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”.
Ms Wynn-Williams and Macmillan did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the ruling.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) condemned Meta for seeking, and securing, the emergency order. The book was published on Tuesday and is in bookstores this week.
The gag order comes a day after Ms Wynn-Williams’s book detailed how Facebook was given a “special phone” for contacting the Irish government if it encountered any problems in Dublin.
The book also details how, during talks in Davos in 2015, former Taoiseach Enda Kenny sought Meta’s help to “build up the credibility” of the criticised Data Protection Commission by “talking publicly about its audits of Facebook privacy” and the changes Meta made as a consequence.
Ms Wynn-Williams’ memoir also exposes alleged secret deals with the Chinese government, complicity in the Myanmar genocide and sexual misconduct in the C-Suite at Facebook.
Dr Johnny Ryan, director of Enforce, said: “This is an egregious example of corporate power trampling over the freedom of expression rights of a whistleblower and crucial critic.
“Ms Wynn-Williams’ explosive claims reaffirm our oft-cited concerns about the poor enforcement of the GDPR by the Data Protection Commission. This kind of silencing has no place in democratic society.” – Additional reporting: Reuters
