Arbitrator sides with Meta in bid to halt sales of ex-employee's memoir
An arbitrator has sided with Meta in its case against a former employee who made a series of misconduct allegations about the Facebook and Instagram parent company in a memoir published this week.
The memoir, titled 'Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism,' by Sarah Wynn-Williams was published Tuesday. It details claims of sexual harassment and incomplete statements by Meta executives to Congress about Facebook's relationship with China, NBC News reported earlier this week.
The memoir alleges sexual harassment by Joel Kaplan, who was her boss serving as vice president for global public policy at the time. He was named earlier this year to serve as Meta's global affairs officer.
According to the arbitrator's decision, published Wednesday, Wynn-Williams was ordered not to make or amplify any 'disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental comments' about any person or entity related to Meta, and must retract any existing remarks.
She was also told not to continue prompting, publishing or distributing the book, emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowen wrote in his decision.
As of Thursday morning, the book still appeared for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Meta's arbitration alleges the claims in Wynn-Williams' memoir violate the non-disparagement agreement she signed when she was fired.
The Hill reached out to Macmillan Publishers and Flatiron Books, both named respondents in the case, for comment.
'This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams' false and defamatory book should never have been published,' Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote in a statement.
Stone claimed Wynn-Williams was fired for 'poor performance and toxic behavior,' adding an investigation eight years ago found she made misleading and unfounded allegations.
'This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,' a Meta spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday.
The spokesperson claimed Wynn-Williams has been 'paid by anti-Facebook activists.'
Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books,' the spokesperson added.
The harassment investigation mentioned in Wynn-Williams' book lasted 42 days and included 17 witness interviews and a review of every document provided by Wynn-Williams, according to Meta.
Several former colleagues of Kaplan spoke out on social media in his defense.
'I was present for a lot of these events — and I worked on some of these projects — and these descriptions are just not even close,' former Meta employee Sarah Feinberg wrote on Threads earlier this week. 'I worked with Joel Kaplan throughout my years at Facebook — he was one of my closest colleagues – and I have never observed him be anything other than professional, thoughtful, strategic and fair.'
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