The author was gagged by the firm after her book, Careless People, alleged sex harassment and censorship. Its actions prove her point, says her publisher
The Sunday Times
My phone beeped. It was 10pm in the middle of a busy week in book publishing — London Book Fair 2025. My colleagues were alerting me to a tweet by Andy Stone, a spokesman at Meta (formerly Facebook). It was short and to the point: “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’s false and defamatory book should never have been published.”
The book in question was Careless People, a gripping and explosive account of Sarah’s time working at Facebook as director of global public policy from 2011 to 2017. The “ruling” to which Stone referred was made by a US arbitrator after Meta sought an injunction, banning Sarah from promoting her own book or saying anything negative about Meta, potentially for ever.
I am Sarah’s editor at Pan Macmillan. Like all publishers, I typically work behind the scenes to amplify the voices of our authors. I am only writing this because she cannot.
The day after Stone’s March 12 tweet, Careless People was due to be released in the UK. Drawing on documentary evidence, it details a staggering range of allegations, including sexual harassment, the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable teenagers and the company’s alleged complicity in genocide. It also accuses Facebook of hypocrisy regarding censorship, alleging the company worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese Communist Party. But it was perhaps the personal portraits of top executives that were most damning.
The ruling, awarded without proper notice by an emergency arbitrator (a non-court mediator that is part of the American Arbitration Association), actually said nothing about the truth or otherwise of Sarah’s devastating claims in her book. It made no mention of defamation. Instead, it relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her. Which it did, from March 13, 2025, her publication day. We could still publish the book, but our author could not talk about it. Sarah was left in an unprecedented and unenviable position for an author, reminiscent of an Orwellian nightmare. Today, she has to police her own speech, facing fines of $50,000 for every statement that could be seen to be “negative or otherwise detrimental” to Meta.
Despite her residing in the UK, the terms of the order are so broad that they extend to the privacy of her own home, even when speaking to her own family. The $50,000 fines could apply individually to the many statements in her book too. She faces financial ruin from a multi-trillion-dollar company seeking millions of dollars she doesn’t have, as part of the ongoing legal process which is yet to conclude — and all for revealing information that is in the public interest. She is an award-winning, bestselling author. But her voice has been taken away.
In some ways, Meta’s intervention did us, as her publishers, a favour. Careless People was always likely to be a bestseller. But when readers realised that Meta was trying to suppress it, the book became a global phenomenon. To date we’ve sold almost 200,000 copies. It has received rave reviews and created a media firestorm for its revelations. But also because of the bitter irony in Meta’s legal action to silence Sarah.
In January 2025, only a few months before it was published, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had stated that it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”. They had abandoned the use of independent fact-checkers, claiming they were biased and encouraged censorship. Yet, in truth, free speech only mattered when it wasn’t used to interrogate Meta itself.
Companies like Meta are wealthier than some countries and more powerful too. They own the technology behind the modern world. We have published books about highly influential individuals before and, in my experience, they tend not to like it and have well resourced legal teams behind them. But Meta’s leadership had a different level of power. So Careless People was brought to publication in an aura of secrecy and (it turns out justified) paranoia.
A very small team worked on the book. We communicated on encrypted channels and whenever it was discussed, those not involved had to leave the room. There was a rumour in our office that it might be Taylor Swift’s memoir. Sarah didn’t even tell her mum she had written it before the news was made public.
Usually, we announce our books to retailers many months in advance. This is so they can build pre-orders and sort the logistics of getting them to bookshops in good time. After all, they deal with thousands of new titles released every week. With Careless People, the months rolled by and yet we kept delaying our announcement, conscious of potential attempts to quash it. Our incredible sales team managed to convince retailers — including a number of supermarkets — to stock the book without even telling them what it was, but retailers’ patience had limits. When we finally did announce the book, it was just a week before publication (again unprecedented) and we had no idea what to expect.
Sarah went on a publicity blitz. She did her first and only print interview with Rosamund Urwin for this paper. In a whirlwind 24 hours, she jetted off to New York for an interview with NBC, flying back overnight for an interview the following day with the BBC in our offices. She hadn’t slept and arrived straight from the airport at dawn. One of the world’s most significant whistleblowers showered in our basement and used a tote bag from our children’s department as a towel. Who says that publishing isn’t glamorous?
But the publicity tour stopped only a week after it had begun, on the day of our publication and the ruling. The audiobook, recorded in secret before the gag order took effect, soon became the only way to hear Sarah speak. And the book? Well, Meta’s spokesman, Stone, called it “a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives”. Yet not everyone agreed.
In April 2025, Sarah was called to give evidence to a US Senate subcommittee, alleging that she saw Meta executives “repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values” by providing the Chinese Communist Party with access to the data of Meta users. The chairman, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, concluded the hearing by saying: “I have a message to Mark Zuckerberg, as well. It’s time for you to tell the truth. You should come to this committee and take an oath and sit where Ms Wynn-Williams is sitting now and answer this evidence. Stop trying to silence her.” He is yet to appear almost a year later.
In the UK, Careless People was also sent to all MPs by the Molly Rose Foundation, a charity set up to prevent suicide in people under 25. Its chief executive Andy Burrows said: “Her claims that Meta cynically exploited the wellbeing of teenage girls to grow its advertising revenue will deeply disturb parents and put the conduct of Meta’s leadership under the spotlight.”
Last Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg was forced to give evidence in a landmark social media addiction trial in Los Angeles, which has the potential to set new precedents, holding social media companies legally responsible for their impact on children and adolescents.
While Zuckerberg defends his record in court, Sarah sits in London, legally gagged. She cannot comment on the trial. She cannot discuss the very book that helped spark this global conversation. With the paperback to come out this Thursday, Sarah’s fate remains uncertain and the legal process rumbles on slowly in the US. Yet she retains her fighting spirit, as well as the dry humour that is richly on display in Careless People. I feel hugely honoured to have worked with her and have gained a new appreciation of the personal sacrifices that whistleblowers make for the greater good.
Careless People exposed what Sarah termed a culture of “lethal carelessness”. Meta’s response —ruthless and chilling — proved her point better than any marketing campaign ever could. But while they have stopped her from speaking, they could not stop you from reading. And that is why books that hold power to account are more important than ever.
Mike Harpley is publisher, non-fiction at Pan, part of Pan Macmillan, and the editor of Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams, published in paperback by Pan on February 26, £10.99.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan Macmillan £10.99). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members.