[HN Gopher] Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anyth...
___________________________________________________________________
Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative
about Meta
Author : macleginn
Score : 684 points
Date : 2026-04-04 14:48 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thetimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thetimes.com)
| macleginn wrote:
| https://archive.is/DmiOw
| philprx wrote:
| Recaptcha is taking ages
| KomoD wrote:
| Yeah, that's intentional, it's not going to let you pass
| because the owner has beef with Cloudflare.
|
| Are you using Cloudflare's DNS? That's usually the cause.
| giwook wrote:
| I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage
| you all to do the same.
|
| We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral
| companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that
| would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately
| that's through our money and how we spend it.
|
| Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.
| fsloth wrote:
| It's also a damn good book!
|
| More like Catch-22 than a cheap "spill the tea" ride.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Done
| qnleigh wrote:
| Also if you use Instagram regularly, consider replacing that
| time with something else. Does it really offer anything of
| value to you, compared to the harm Meta has caused?
| turtletontine wrote:
| Or just delete your Instagram account. Really, it's easier
| than you think it is. You might find you don't even miss it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Unlike an elected government, who the common people at least in
| theory have a chance to replace via elections, the public
| pretty much has no say in what these companies and their
| leadership are allowed to do. Nobody voted for Meta. Nobody
| voted for Palantir. Nobody voted for Philip Morris. You can say
| that someone "voted with their wallet," but that doesn't point
| to a viable solution. "Not voting with your wallet" essentially
| means becoming a hermit and living isolated in the woods.
| Because there are no alternate companies that are ethical.
| Ethics have costs, and the nature of competition means that
| ethical companies will always be outcompeted and die to
| companies who don't care to pay those cost.
| CPLX wrote:
| The solution is to not allow concentration of corporate power
| at this level and to break it up when it happens anyways.
|
| The root cause under all this IS government policy. All the
| giant tech companies are the product of years of already
| illegal behavior that was not enforced.
| Noaidi wrote:
| > "Not voting with your wallet" essentially means becoming a
| hermit and living isolated in the woods.
|
| This is a total exaggeration and just gives power to these
| companies. You can start here:
|
| https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/
|
| YOU voted for Facebook when you use it, by not installing a
| hosts file that blocks it and all advertisements. We do not
| need to use these platforms, and the less people that use
| them the less you will need to use it.
|
| All we have to do is start making their profit fall and they
| will change. But it must be a strong and unified effort.
| ben_w wrote:
| Unfortunately, no hosts file on iOS, and it isn't reliably
| listened to on macOS.
|
| But with all the other stuff Apple's doing, I suspect my
| next machines won't be Apple...
| satvikpendem wrote:
| It's a shame because their hardware and battery life are
| so good but then they ruin it with the software.
| cousin_it wrote:
| The phrase "voting with your wallet" is hilarious to begin
| with, because it admits that rich people have more voting
| power and implies that's how it should be.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Collectively "rich people" spend less than 50% of the total
| consumer spending so this isn't actually true exactly.
|
| If you mean an individual person then it really depends.
| mememememememo wrote:
| Consumer being the operative word. What about business
| spend?
| altmanaltman wrote:
| So you're saying if a company is boycotted by most of its
| poor customers, the rich customers will subsidize the loss?
| Do you really think that will happen?
|
| Companies need customers, and if they lose customers, they
| can go out of business. The saying doesn't mean "the bigger
| the wallet, the bigger the vote" but rather "boycott this
| company and do not be a customer."
| Y-bar wrote:
| This is effectively happening, not in the way you frame
| it, but companies has effectively moved to rely solely on
| the rich:
|
| > The top 10% of American households in terms of income
| earned are driving nearly half of all U.S. consumer
| spending.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/us-economy-
| strength-ri...
|
| Edit: An NPR episode on the concerning trend,
| https://www.npr.org/2025/11/21/nx-s1-5616629/consumer-
| sentim...
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ouch. That's a pattern in the developing world.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| No, that's not what they are saying. They are saying that
| the literal reading of the term itself implies that poor
| people have less of a say than rich people.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Vote with you wallet is not about civic function it's about
| getting what you want from the market place.
|
| And yes rich people get more goods and services.. which is
| why people want to be rich?
| giwook wrote:
| I don't disagree with you entirely.
|
| But we're not powerless. I'd argue that we saw the impact we
| can have when we act collectively when Trump tried to
| pressure ABC into cancelling Jimmy Kimmel. It took ABC a few
| days maybe before they capitulated (again, except this time
| to their customers).
| 9991 wrote:
| Who are their customers in this scenario?
| jmye wrote:
| > Nobody voted for Meta.
|
| Of course they did - they "voted" for them every time they
| signed on to Facebook or Instagram or used WhatsApp, and they
| doubled down every time they let their children use them.
| They vote for them every time they elect grifters and
| spineless toadies to office.
|
| These companies don't have users by default. They have users
| because shitty people use shitty services made by even
| shittier people because they need their little hits of
| dopamine.
|
| None of that, at all, has a fucking thing to do with being a
| "hermit living in the woods" unless you're determined to make
| the contrived, obviously bullshit argument that "everything,
| everywhere is terrible so it's all pointless so just keep
| scrolling".
|
| But that would be trivially asinine.
| Schmerika wrote:
| You're on HN; a platform where the founders and CEO are big
| cheerleaders of DOGE. Where talk of many third rail topics
| is quietly flagged into oblivion, and discussions on the
| flagging processes are explicitly banned.
|
| YC were best buds with Peter Thiel... And literally had Sam
| "scan everyone's eyeballs" Altman as Pres _for 5 years_.
| They are actively seeking out "defense" tech to invest in;
| even during a US sponsored genocide, and now-daily war
| crimes.
|
| The users here aren't tech-clueless like a lot of
| Facebookers would be. _In theory_ we 're better educated,
| better informed, more tech savvy, and higher paid. As a
| group, we're _far_ more deeply connected and complicit with
| the tech bros than Whatsappers and Instagrammers.
|
| So, we have that much less of an excuse to be "shitty
| people [who] use shitty services made by even shittier
| people because they need their little hits of dopamine."
|
| I despise Meta. I also use their services sometimes. Maybe
| it's not simply a matter of voting for Zuckerberg, but
| there are network effects and captured systems and
| manipulation of addictive behaviors. Maybe things aren't as
| vanta-black and ultra-white as you're insisting.
|
| I'll put it like this - what you're doing with that comment
| above is a lot like blaming smokers for feeding the tobacco
| companies. Despite all the lies and ads and manipulation,
| despite all the dirty tricks, despite the hard-core science
| used to get people hooked from every possible angle.
| Despite the cancer, the lung disease, the heart problems
| suffered by the victims.
|
| Punch _up_ dude.
| superkuh wrote:
| >I'll put it like this - what you're doing with that
| comment above is a lot like blaming smokers for feeding
| the tobacco companies. Despite all the lies and ads and
| manipulation, despite all the dirty tricks, despite the
| hard-core science used to get people hooked from every
| possible angle.
|
| I have never used Facebook and I never will. What they
| have done is immoral and unethical and deserves
| regulation.
|
| What I fear is that regulation will be informed from the
| false and dangerous equivalence you've made there
| comparing addictive drugs to looking at an audio-visual
| screen. Drugs literally can make you want without there
| being any enjoyment. Screens are just a medium, like, a
| radio (which can also be used for random internal operant
| conditioning), the screens and the radio are not the
| problem and they are _NOT LIKE DRUGS_. You actually have
| to enjoy the experience and repeat it. And that 's just
| normal learning. That drug comparison will lead to
| government's treating computers' like drugs which means
| heavy regulation of _end users_ and violence against
| them. A far more dangerous scenario than the issues were
| facing from the corporations now.
|
| We need regulation of the corporations intentionally
| doing random interval operant conditioning. Not
| regulation of the medium they do it over and the people
| enjoying using that medium.
| Schmerika wrote:
| > What I fear is that regulation will be informed from
| the false and dangerous equivalence you've made there
| comparing addictive drugs to looking at an audio-visual
| screen.
|
| Let's be extremely clear - I'm not the one who first made
| that comparison. That would be the tech bros, who hire
| all manner of addiction and gambling specialists and
| scientists in order to make their products as addictive
| as possible.
|
| > the screens and the radio are not the problem and they
| are NOT LIKE DRUGS
|
| For a fully competent adult, you can make that argument.
| Kinda.
|
| To an unsupervised 9yo? An 89 yo? Facebook is _a lot_
| like drugs, only with the mind-altering effects much
| easier to direct. No, that 's not the screens fault (or
| the radio), and no one said it was.
|
| > That drug comparison will lead to government's treating
| computers' like drugs which means heavy regulation of end
| users and violence against them.
|
| If I really believed that avoiding such a comparison
| would prevent government from over-regulation and
| violence toward social media users, then I'd avoid it.
| But I don't.
|
| Also, using the insanity and violence of the drug war to
| self-censor obvious comparisons is certainly a choice.
|
| > We need regulation of the corporations intentionally
| doing random interval operant conditioning. Not
| regulation of the medium they do it over and the people
| enjoying using that medium.
|
| No one anywhere was arguing for regulating your screen or
| the internet - except maybe the government which you
| insist on doing the regulation, and the corporations who
| are large enough to own politicians. If you got that
| impression purely from the tobacco analogy (which you
| then morphed into the drug war somehow) I'd encourage you
| to try and reinterpret the point.
| alex1138 wrote:
| It's not exactly choice. I'm well aware there were other
| social services that were before FB but you have to look at
| the timeline. The internet NOW is objectively probably
| still pretty young (it's hard to quantify age with
| something like this). Back then in 2004-6 even more so.
| There's a real need to connect with people (even if I have
| your email, "loose connections" are important. If I have a
| timeline, I can share my status update to my page and all
| my loose connections around the world - people I know now,
| people I lost touch with but have reconnected with, and
| other groups of people - in a way I wouldn't be doing with
| email)
|
| Facebook was the thing that came along post Myspace and
| unfortunately is the product of someone with lacking
| ethical imagination. People feel forced to use it or else
| they don't know why it's bad. And I don't think people who
| use these things are automatically addicts. It's not their
| fault the company and leadership lies to them (about
| various things. Privacy and whatever else)
|
| Of course people "can just stop". But that's hard. We
| shouldn't be punished for involving ourselves in the game
| of network effects, of wanting to have friends
|
| When Mark Zuckerberg makes a policy like "it's ok to call
| certain groups mentally ill"
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178) it's rug
| pulling. Even if you didn't know about Dumb Fucks
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122) you use
| these services both out of necessity and because you think
| it's a way to keep in touch. People don't "willingly
| choose" this. They had the rug pulled out repeatedly,
| whether it's censoring links to competitors, shadow
| profiles, impossible to delete an account, or whatever. It
| doesn't have to be like this but that doesn't mean people
| using their products are bad people for using their
| products
| altmanaltman wrote:
| The elected government can do something about these companies
| and their leadership if the people who elect them force it.
| It is not the job of the general public to regulate companies
| and their behavior; it's the job of the government in a
| regulated free market, and the common people elect the
| government.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| It's available on libgen as well.
|
| To anyone salty about that, free advertising cuts both ways. I
| support their work and it would appear that their goal is to
| spread the ideas and messages, as it should be with all
| publishing.
| robrain wrote:
| Bought it on Kobo the day of the initial ban, mostly as a
| screw-you and reaction to corporate censorship. The fact that
| it's a good book and tells an interesting story in a clear
| manner was a side-benefit. Strongly recommend.
| rectang wrote:
| I've just bought my copy.
|
| Best-sellers don't sell that many copies in the absolute sense.
| From what I can tell _Careless People_ has sold around 200,000.
| Moving the needle just a bit is worth it.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Its an entertaining read, much more gripping than I was
| expecting. I assumed it would just be a dirt dishing exercise,
| combined with self aggrandising horse shit (ie Frances Haugen)
|
| But actually its a good story.
|
| One thing to note, all meta employees who are "let go" with any
| kind of severance has the same clause. They are all basically
| given a bunch of cash and told "we'll recover this as a debt if
| you bad mouth us"
|
| Which goes against the "freedom of expression" shit the Zuck
| espouses.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Just be aware that the author really doesn't get much of the
| money you're spending. The publisher takes a sizable chunk, as
| does Amazon if you ordered from there.
| itsdesmond wrote:
| The fuck are you arguing here? Should they not buy the book?
| vntok wrote:
| They probably shouldn't indeed, if one is to believe some
| of the comments here.
|
| > read the book and honestly the author is just as crazy as
| the rest of the executive team she skewers
| whynotminot wrote:
| Bought and read the book and honestly the author is just as
| crazy as the rest of the executive team she skewers. I'm not
| too broken up that she didn't get more money from my
| purchase.
| badgersnake wrote:
| > Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.
|
| Let's not forget they're also behind all this age verification
| BS.
| ndesaulniers wrote:
| It was a page turner. I recommend it.
| chamomeal wrote:
| I guess I just don't understand contracts and laws. Your
| employment agreement can include stuff like "if you say anything
| bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us
| $50,000".
|
| What in the world?? I guess NDA's are like that, and used
| everywhere. Still it just seems wild
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Ah, don't worry, we have a concept of "onerous clause doctrine"
| to help with that. Of course, it's almost entirely up to a
| judge's discretion what is and is not onerous, so...
| sbarre wrote:
| And you might spend more than $50,000 challenging it in
| court, because the billion dollar corporation you signed it
| with would rather spend the money against you than set a
| precedent everyone else could use against them in the future.
| malfist wrote:
| Well this is locked away in arbitration, so it'll never see a
| judge. Just the shadow court system owned and operated by the
| Epstein class. Because the existing system wasn't biased
| enough towards moneyed interests
| kubb wrote:
| Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from
| signing away your freedom of speech.
| FpUser wrote:
| In a normal society courts should be protecting from
| signing away basic freedoms
| 0x3f wrote:
| What are 'basic freedoms'?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Free speech?
| 0x3f wrote:
| So I can't sign an exclusive book deal? Or write for a
| newspaper?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Exclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans.
|
| I'm not clear on the newspaper example; do you think
| reporters aren't allowed to write stuff outside their
| job? Plenty of reporters publish books.
| 0x3f wrote:
| No I just mean in the sense that I give over the rights
| to my own words. I can't repeat them outside of the
| context that I've agreed to. They were both examples of
| the same kind of agreement. They'll keep those rights
| well after I'm dead, by the way.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You're not giving over the rights, you're selling the
| right to profit from them under contract.
|
| You can argue that contract law is essentially a battle
| of relative political and economic power, and IP and
| employment contracts will _always_ be unfair unless
| limits are set by statute and enforced enthusiastically.
|
| And personally I would.
|
| But generally you're signing away the rights to specific
| text, not the insights or commentary in that text, and if
| you freelance there's nothing to stop you making your
| points through some other channel, and/or some other
| text.
|
| If you're a full-time employee then the usual agreement
| is that your words (code) are work product and owned by
| your employer, and you're in that situation because your
| political and economic power is relatively limited.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _Exclusive book deals tend to have defined timespans_
|
| Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable
| basic [freedom] that peopke should be able to deal in".
|
| Of course, we can quibble over the permissible duration
| of such timespans, but I think the point has been made
| clear.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Just to be clear: you're asserting that "there are some
| inalienable rights" can be debunked by the existance of
| one that is not inalienable?
|
| That's not how this works.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| We're talking about whether people should be permitted to
| sign away their right to speech. I think you've conceded
| that such is permissible _at least_ for a limited
| duration. Shall we quibble the permissible durations, or
| are you done?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure; we have to resolve conflicts between two sets of
| people with rights sometimes. The inalienable right to
| free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud; the
| inalienable right to freedom of movement doesn't apply to
| jailed murderers.
|
| Unconscionability is a bit like obscenity; hard to
| perfectly define, but sometimes quite clear.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| > The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to
| defamation and fraud
|
| You have a strange definition of "inalienable".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not really; it's a conflict between two groups and sets
| of rights.
|
| I have the inalienable right to not be defamed and
| defrauded.
|
| Now we have to resolve the contradiction as a society.
| That it's sometimes messy doesn't mean we ditch the
| concept of rights.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| Those are not inalienable rights either, they're legal
| rights. Here, courtesy of Cornell law:
|
| "An inalienable right is a fundamental entitlement
| inherent to every person that cannot be sold,
| transferred, or taken away by the government. These
| rights, often called natural rights are considered
| essential, cannot be surrendered by the individual, and
| are not dependent on laws."
|
| Just Google "is x an inalienable right" next time.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| An inalienable right can also be a legally protected one.
|
| "Inalienable" is an assertion; a _should_.
|
| The right not to be genocided is inalienable. It gets
| violated still.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| You asserted that free speech was an inalienable right,
| they provided an example showing it's not.
|
| They also could have mentioned: NDA's, hate speech,
| threats, incitement, purjury, defamation, security-
| clearances or state secrets.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > You asserted that free speech was an inaliable right,
| they provided an example showing it's not.
|
| No.
|
| "Inalienable right", like the "right to bear arms", has
| never meant you get to do _anything_ with it. Free speech
| doesn 't extend to defamation; free expression doesn't
| extend to murder; freedom of the press doesn't extend to
| sneaking into the CIA's archives, freedom of movement
| doesn't apply to jails.
|
| I'm of the opinion that arbitration clauses and non-
| disparagement agreements of the scope involved in this
| particular case are unconsionable, because they
| unreasonably infringe upon such inalienable rights.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| You're proving my my point, the right to bear arms is a
| constitutional right, not an inalienable right. Please
| look up the definition of inalienable.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Some assert it's inalienable.
|
| (I don't agree - re-read my wording carefully - but some
| certainly take that position. My point: those who _do_
| still tend to take the "but there are limits!" position
| on, say, home-brewed nukes.)
|
| In each case, though - constitutional right, human right,
| inalienable right, natural right - the fundamental
| concept of "sometimes two people have rights that
| conflict, and society has to resolve this" applies.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| Those that are deemed inalienable.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Please enumerate these inaliable basic freedoms that I
| should not be able to deal in.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The US will not permit you to sign yourself into slavery,
| as an example.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Only for a very narrow definition of slavery. Arguably
| constructing society such that it costs so much to just
| exist (for example, by artificially restricting housing
| supply) and thus you have to work is not all that
| different to slavery. I would say the dollar is but
| company scrip with better PR.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Only for a very narrow definition of slavery.
|
| Good. We have "enumerate[d] [at least one] inaliable
| basic [freedom] that I should not be able to deal in".
| 0x3f wrote:
| Well now you're equivocating. We've established one that
| you can't deal in in a specific country. _Should_ is
| quite a different question. You can't establish should by
| establishing is.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Don't hurt your back moving those goalposts. Lift with
| hips.
| 0x3f wrote:
| America = literally the whole world and everyone in it so
| QED inalienable rights exist
|
| Well I wouldn't call it a strong argument...
|
| Nonetheless the goalposts were never shifted. The
| question was always 'should'. So I'm very confused by
| your confusion.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| What proof, exactly, would you accept for "should"?
|
| Should is an opinion. You're welcome to feel "slavery
| should be legal". I'm welcome to (and _should_ ) think
| you're insane for holding that opinion.
| 0x3f wrote:
| > Should is an opinion.
|
| Well that would seem to make the rights in question not
| particularly inalienable. In fact if we're talking about
| the US slavery _is_ legal in certain contexts. So it's
| definitely not inalienable. Only in the context of
| voluntary agreements between private citizens.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Well that would seem to make the rights in question not
| particularly inalienable.
|
| You _should_ read up on what "inalienable rights" are
| about. Even the first couple of paragraphs on Wikipedia
| will suffice.
|
| They get violated all the time and need constant
| protecting.
| 0x3f wrote:
| You're taking a strangely ethnocentric view here. I don't
| take the founding fathers' writings as a form of
| scripture. Those are but bare assertions.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You're taking a strangely US-centric view here.
|
| This has nothing to do with the founding fathers. The
| Ancient Greeks talked about natural law. The UN passed
| the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 193 countries
| have ratified at least parts of it.
|
| Again, I beg you to at least read a paragraph or two off
| Wikipedia.
| 0x3f wrote:
| The specific term 'inalienable' is heavily associated
| with the founding of the US. The others are different
| things but not very different in substance, i.e.
| ultimately some guy claimed these are universal rights.
| Wikipedia is not going to make appeal to authority work
| any better as an argument, I'm afraid.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Clear ignorance again.
|
| https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-
| huma...
|
| > Preamble
|
| > Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the
| equal and _inalienable rights_ of all members of the
| human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and
| peace in the world...
| 0x3f wrote:
| Is the US not in the UN now or something? The whole
| UNUDHR was an Eleanor Roosevelt project. She literally
| drafted the documents! At least look it up before being
| rude. You need to get the knowledge before applying the
| sass.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "An American helped convince 193 countries of something,
| therefore it's invalid" is a take, I suppose.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Well this was really just a sub-argument about whether
| 'inalienable' is an Americanism, which it is. The real
| point about 'natural' rights, or whatever term you've
| switched to using, is that they're simply assertions. Not
| supported by anything else. Doesn't really matter who is
| asserting them. The argument takes the same form, and is
| equally bunk.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > whatever term you've switched to using
|
| They're synonyms.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_right goes to h
| ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_rig
| ht.... This happens a lot in English.
|
| "Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the
| laws or customs of any particular culture or government,
| and so are universal, fundamental and _inalienable_... "
|
| > is that they're simply assertions
|
| So's "we don't have natural rights".
| 0x3f wrote:
| > So's "we don't have natural rights".
|
| That's the null hypothesis. There are no teapots orbiting
| the sun, either.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| How fascinating it is that your opinion is the only one
| not requiring support.
|
| I think I will take feedback from someone who's heard of
| a thesaurus.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| If you'd like to research basic freedoms, I would suggest
| starting here.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_rights
| 0x3f wrote:
| It's very boring for you not to actually commit to
| anything specific, so that you don't have to defend it.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| There's a basic list on that page. There are many LLMs
| out there that you can discuss this with if you want to
| waste your own time. I'm not going to waste any more time
| with this thread. You have an attitude that says "Debate
| me but you'll never convince me". If you'd like to learn
| something, there are many resources on the internet
| available to you.
| malfist wrote:
| I'm glad we're all here under the goal of making non-
| boring statements for 0x3f
| 0x3f wrote:
| We're all essentially here under the goal of making non-
| boring statements for each other, yes. That is the
| general purpose of an online forum.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| Freedom of speech is far from inalienable. Non-disclosure
| agreements are most relevant, but every country on earth
| also has at least some regulations regarding hate speech,
| threats, incitement, purjury, or defamation -- not to
| mention security clearances or state secrets.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| And that's where the complexity arises in this argument
| that I don't know how to resolve. In the case of this
| woman vs Meta, to me it doesn't "feel" legal that one
| disparaging comment costs $50K. It feels that there's
| something wrong here that should not be allowed despite
| her entering the agreement. Maybe I don't believe she
| should have been allowed to enter the agreement.
|
| But I understand that my point of view doesn't match
| legal code. Just feels fucked.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| To be clear, I do agree with everything you've said here
| -- I just disagree that freedom of speech is an
| inalienable right, and I don't think there's ever been a
| time or place where it has actually been considered one.
|
| If it were up to me, I would require non-disparagement
| agreements to be standalone contracts, and cap the
| damages a company can claim to the amount they paid you
| to sign it. Once that number is met, the contract is
| void. That way the company only gets as much leverage as
| they're willing to pay for.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The majority of people will self-alienate themselves in
| exchange for power or even just survival
|
| Think of a person digging their own grave under threat of
| immediate murder (tons of well documented examples). This
| is the maximum self alienation: do work to make life
| easier for your oppressors.
|
| In my 41 years it seems like the majority of people are
| content digging their own graves
| pessimizer wrote:
| If you don't believe that people should be able to sell
| themselves into slavery, you should start by offering
| your list. If you _do_ believe that people should be able
| to sell themselves into slavery, then unlimited freedom
| of contract is a basic freedom for you.
|
| What you shouldn't do is pretend not to understand.
| 0x3f wrote:
| I'm not the one making a positive claim. I haven't even
| claimed such rights exist so why on earth would be the
| expectation be that I list them? You've assumed that I
| believe in this shared fiction.
|
| We sell ourselves into a form of slavery every day. Some
| would argue that is a big driver of our current society
| and way of life.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| You can't get people to try to break out of a prison they
| don't think they are in
| nativeit wrote:
| Speech, for example.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| That would also preclude non-disclosure agreements. I'm
| curious if you also find those unreasonable?
| FpUser wrote:
| Depends on what type of non-disclosure. Disclosing
| technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-
| how - I am ok with those. Disclosing that boss treats
| people like trash should be allowed and I think lawmakers
| should have enough intelligence in their brains to make
| laws accordingly.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| I get that you're not a free speech maximalist, but
| that's still signing away a basic freedom.
| wtallis wrote:
| > Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known
| technical know-how - I am ok with those.
|
| I would love to see NDAs for trade secrets limited in a
| way that incentivizes companies to rely on patent
| protection instead, where the system is set up to ensure
| that knowledge eventually becomes public record and
| freely usable by anyone. It would be very interesting to
| see how eg. the tech industry would change if trade
| secret protection were limited to a meaningfully shorter
| duration than patents.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Both non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements
| should--just as many jurisdictions have for non-compete
| agreements, which do not even implicate free speech the
| way the others do--be sharply limited as a matter of
| public policy (non-disparagement even moreso than non-
| disclosure.) Both are routinely used to inflict public
| harm for private gain, and government enforcement of
| either is in tension with freedom of speech; while there
| is a legitimate case to be made that non-disclosure
| agreements within certain bounds have a certain degree of
| necessity in enabling legitimate business, this is a much
| harder case to make for non-disparagement agreements, at
| least for ones that are not temporally bounded within an
| active business relationship.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Is it freedom if you can't make an informed choice to sell
| it?
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| I would argue yes. If you have the choice to sell to sell
| it, you can be forced to sell it.
|
| One can still give up their basic rights if they so
| choose. The woman in question can cease from disparaging
| Meta for the rest of her life. A person can opt to enter
| in to being a slave to another for the rest of their
| life. I can choose to follow one religion or another or
| none at all. But one should never have those options
| taken from them.
| thayne wrote:
| You just lost your job, through no fault of your own, or
| maybe because you did the right thing and blew the
| whistle on illegal and/or unethical behavior. You don't
| know how long it will be before you find a new job or how
| you are going to pay the bills until then. Your employer
| offers you some money to tie you over, and maybe some
| resources to tide you over until you get a new job, but
| you have to agree to a hundred pages of legalese. And you
| only have a few hours to decide, not enough time to have
| a lawyer look at it, even if you could afford to pay a
| lawyer. You are highly stressed, so even if you take the
| time to read it, you probably don't take it all in, and
| feel pressured to agree. And your employer also makes
| vague threats that about what will happen if you don't
| sign it, like having a hard time finding a new job or
| maybe having legal action taken against you.
|
| Does that seem like a free informed decision?
|
| Looking at it another way, anti-disparagement agreements
| are basically bribes to keep quiet even if disclosure
| would benefit the general population.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| I understand freedom of speech and I understand she's free
| to speak but there may be consequences. I understand that
| there are huge complexities in the legal system. I
| understand you can enter into agreements (part of your
| speech) that effectively gives away your speech. But if you
| step back and look at this situation, it's just fucked up
| that a corporation can do this to you. If freedom of speech
| is supposed to be inalienable, these types of agreements
| should not be legal.
|
| disclaimer: She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US
| perspective.
| thayne wrote:
| > She lives in the UK and I'm speaking from a US
| perspective.
|
| But the contract is being enforced from the US.
| fmajid wrote:
| The UK is far worse, with draconian libel laws where the
| burden of proof is on the defendant. Originally designed
| to stop uppity commoners from challenging the
| aristocrats, now used by oligarchs to silence
| journalists.
| zaphar wrote:
| The corporation did not _do_ this to her. It was a two
| party agreement. She bears just as much blame for the
| agreement as the corporation. She entered into it
| willingly. And that does and should have consequences.
|
| Morally speaking I think the company is reprehensible.
| But nor do I think contact law should be changed because
| of it.
| rkomorn wrote:
| I'd agree with you if there wasn't a significant power
| imbalance that virtually always skews way more in favor
| of the corporation.
|
| It is far more likely that an individual would do best to
| agree to a corporation's terms even if they favor the
| corporation than the other way around.
| zaphar wrote:
| The antidote to a power imbalance is to recognize that
| there is no power imbalance and go about your life that
| way.
|
| Pretending there is one lands you in an imaginary trap.
| Build a society where we recognize that and you build a
| society where the imaginary trap disappears.
| mindslight wrote:
| You're the one pretending here. The economy is
| unfortunately designed around most people relying on an
| income stream that remains at the whims of someone else.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _I understand she 's free to speak but there may be
| consequences_
|
| nit: this isn't generally a valid analysis. Rather, it's
| a common refrain used by people undermining freedom of
| speech while pretending to support it. This trope is
| often even trotted out in full-powertalk mode where it's
| applied to consequences coming from the government
| itself.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Which means it's not a right
| mikkupikku wrote:
| In Germany, this sort of thinking is the reason you can't
| release anything into the public domain. People are
| presumed to be too stupid to be trusted with the decision
| to renounce their copyright and so they are "protected"
| from this possibility.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Did you mean to say "presumed to be too stupid, or too
| easily conned or coerced"?
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Have you ever been conned into releasing something into
| the public domain? Me either. Its not a real problem. But
| signing over the rights to some corporate party? That
| happens all the time, and is permitted in Germany.
| Germany is being very stupid here. They're letting
| abstract reasoning about principles blind them to common
| sense (many such cases in German history.)
| 0x3f wrote:
| > I guess I just don't understand contracts and laws.
|
| What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to
| thing.
| browningstreet wrote:
| And yet it's not even that simple. Contracts can be
| invalidated.
|
| Other countries have fairness doctrines with allow/disallow
| lists of things that can be included in contracts.
|
| There are other ways.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The US has limits on contracts as well, and courts can and
| will invalidate clauses or entire contracts for a variety
| of reasons. Read any of your terms and conditions, there is
| almost always a clause in there saying that if a clause is
| found to be unenforceable, you agree that the rest of the
| contract is still valid. The bar is a lot lower in the
| states, but it's still there.
|
| E.g. You can sign a contract to work for less than minimum
| wage, it will be entirely thrown out in court.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.
|
| Some contracts are illegal, and purely made to intimidate the
| other party - and completely rests on the fact that said
| other party will never challenge or even check if the
| contract is valid in the first place. Hence why so many of
| these contracts also have arbitration clauses which stipulate
| that the parties must resolve through private arbitration.
|
| Any time someone has the balls to challenge these things is
| also a win for the working man.
| 0x3f wrote:
| > Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.
|
| You mean, like the one in the article the GP is pretending
| not to understand?
| nativeit wrote:
| Human Cent-iPad style?
| idop wrote:
| Except that a well functioning society that expects its laws
| to be respected cannot allow the law to be circumvented by
| commercial agreements.
|
| If a country passes a law that guarantees all its citizens
| the right to free speech, and now a company forces (!) a
| citizen to sign a contract saying they waive that right in
| order to receive the compensation they're entitled to anyway,
| why should the country accept that? Why should that person
| lose their right to free speech? Did the country give the
| company the authority to cancel its own laws at will?
|
| It's the same with companies forcing candidates to sign non-
| compete agreements in order to be hired, if and when the
| company fires them. If you're a lawyer, and your employer
| fires you, what do you do? Work as a cashier for 3 years
| until the NCC expires? Change your career?
|
| No company should have the authority to make the illegal
| legal (or vice-versa), and no country should accept its own
| citizens giving away their rights to some for-profit company.
| That's mafia shit: "If you excercise your right to free
| speech to expose our crimes, we will withhold the money we
| owe you and ruin your life in court".
|
| Sign me up!!
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's a condition of the severance payment. She didn't need to
| sign it. She wanted the money. Then she violated the terms of
| the contract.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer but even if it was, eg. a year's salary at
| the time she accepted it, is that really a fair price for a
| lifetime of silence?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes?
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| That would be up to her, wouldn't it?
|
| And she signed it, so presumably it was for her.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Maybe? Is your argument that there is no fair price, or
| that it wasn't enough? The former makes NDAs unenforceable.
| fmajid wrote:
| NDAs cannot cover whistleblowing of actual criminality,
| including sexual harassment, which is why modern NDAs take
| pains to disclaim that, so they wouldn't be invalidated on
| that basis. Presumably the behavior exposed in the book,
| while arguably immoral or amoral, doesn't rise to the
| standard of criminality.
| loeg wrote:
| Writing a book isn't covered whistleblowing. If she wants
| to go to the FBI or whatever, no one can stop her.
| fmajid wrote:
| Exactly. Or a legislature as Frances Haugen did.
|
| That said, arbitrators like that which gagged her are
| inherently conflicted since they are paid by the
| corporation, sadly our corrupt Supreme Court rubber-
| stamped binding arbitration so she has no recourse.
| torton wrote:
| I think people living outside the US don't realize how few
| disputes here are actually allowed to use the official legal
| system when dealing with companies of non-trivial size. Many
| employment contracts, many service contracts, and even website
| terms of use require mandatory arbitration in lieu of pursuing
| one's claims in court.
|
| And arbitrator companies (some of which are explicitly for-
| profit) know the hand that feeds them.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Your employment agreement can include stuff like "if you say
| anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home,
| you owe us $50,000".
|
| Non-disparagement clauses are limited by the law, which in the
| United States is augmented by state-level restrictions. There
| have been some recent developments from the NRLB limiting how
| severance agreements can be attached to non-disparagement
| clauses, too.
|
| So it's not generally true that you can be liable for $50K for
| saying anything bad about your employer in your own home.
|
| The situation with this author is on the other end of "in your
| own home" spectrum: They went out and wrote a whole book
| against their employer that violates NDAs, too. Regardless of
| what you think about Meta or the author, this was clearly a
| calculated move on their part to draw out a lawsuit because it
| provides further press coverage and therefore book sales (just
| look at all the comments in this thread from people claiming
| they're motivated to go buy it it now). Whether the gamble pays
| off or not remains to be seen.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Huh, I didn't think of that. If you are aware of the
| Streisand Effect, it is only logical to use it to your own
| advantage. Just like Cunningham's Law, you can often get the
| right answer by posting the wrong one. In fact, this is
| probably the first time someone is knowingly using the
| Streisand Effect to their own advantage. There are no prior
| examples.
| amtamt wrote:
| Overall this feels a good thing for public, even if the
| author is money oriented, because this will hopefully make
| even more details public.
|
| I personally have no qualms about one criminal extorted by
| another, specially if their fued is making world better for
| everyone.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > 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.
|
| It's well past time to rein in arbitration.
|
| It really should be treated like small claims court; only
| permissible up to a point. Once it's high-stakes enough, real
| courts should be in play.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| she agreed to it to get a severance payment
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such
| an agreement heavily limited.
| thejazzman wrote:
| "Sign this or starve" isn't much of a stretch when you
| think about it
| 0x3f wrote:
| As if Meta employees live on the cusp of starving.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-
| faceb...
|
| > Some of the content moderators were earning $28,800 a
| year, the technology news site The Verge found last year.
|
| In this particular case, the legal costs are probably
| pretty ruinous.
| 0x3f wrote:
| I think you'll find the person in question's title is
| quite far from content moderator.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I think you'll find that's why the "in this particular
| case" line is there.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Nobody forced her to break her contract and thus come up
| against that. She would have been perfectly fine on the
| leftovers from ~$500k/y while searching for her next job.
| The parent makes out like she simply had to get the extra
| money, lest she starve to death. Which is patently
| ridiculous.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| It's called a Hobson's choice.
| ppseafield wrote:
| She had serious debilitating medical issues from pregnancy
| where she lost a ton of blood and was in a coma for several
| days and nearly died. Of course she's going to take her
| severance to help care for her family given the atrocious
| state of our healthcare system.
| indymike wrote:
| I hate seeing this down-voted. It is such an important
| warning to people here. Severance agreements are pretty
| strong. Also, be very careful of snap settlement offers.
|
| So many of the greatest tragedies I've seen inflicted on
| people come from accepting an expedient way to get what is
| really a small amount of money quickly. So often the drive is
| paying the rent/mortgage or fear of losing health benefits.
| If you are in a bad situation and offered a settlement and
| you really feel like something isn't right please talk to an
| employment lawyer. Most US States have expedited processes
| for quickly resolving these cases, and the lawyer can help
| you a lot when you feel like your only choice is to take the
| severance.
| pants2 wrote:
| So what happens if the author ignores this judgement? Surely
| arbitration can't send someone to prison. According to the web
| they still need a court to even confirm a monetary penalty.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Per the article:
|
| "facing fines of $50,000 for every statement that could be
| seen to be "negative or otherwise detrimental" to Meta"
|
| > According to the web they still need a court to even
| confirm a monetary penalty.
|
| No, not necessarily with arbitration. The judgement itself
| may need to be confirmed in some states; it likely already
| has.
| ethin wrote:
| Honestly, I would be all for outright abolishing arbitration. I
| have yet to see anything actually good come out of arbitration
| other than a ruling that protects the entity that forced
| arbitration in the first place.
| asgraham wrote:
| The good is hidden: court systems are already overwhelmed. If
| the arbitration cases were added, then it'd take even longer
| to get a court date.
|
| (Which isn't to say I think the system as it is is good, just
| that there is _a_ good)
| zb1plus wrote:
| Sounds like the solution is just hire more judges instead
| ethin wrote:
| Then fix the court system? Create more courts, hire more
| judges/clerks... I mean, I know it isn't "as simple" as
| that, but that's the proper solution instead of creating a
| half-legal half-favoritist system where a company can force
| you into arbitration where, more often than not, the
| arbitrator is paid by the company, and therefore rules in
| it's favor.
| phil21 wrote:
| Or reduce the demand on the legal system? Just adding
| more expense to an outright broken thing isn't an actual
| fix. It's a half-measure patch at best. And no, I don't
| mean create a workaround like arbitration.
|
| Why do court cases take so long and suck up so many
| resources? Start with that. Perhaps reduce the amount of
| legislation/laws/etc. on the books, and write laws that
| limit the litigious society we find ourselves living in.
|
| That is of course easier said than done, but we've chosen
| this path and can choose to unwind it if we have enough
| desire to.
| avidiax wrote:
| Arbitration does help with the problem of overwhelmed and
| expensive courts. What is needed is _fair_ arbitration.
|
| The outcome should approximate the outcome of the full court
| proceeding.
|
| Make the arbitration rulings appealable in court on the basis
| of factual errors, errors of law, corruption, and potential
| errors by omission (i.e. failure of discovery). And make the
| company responsible for the full costs of the litigation if
| the arbiter's judgement is overturned. And punish the
| arbiter, perhaps a 2 year ban on accepting any case from that
| industry.
|
| I'm sure more adjustments would be needed, but it should be
| possible to get both the arbiters and the companies to want
| arbitration to be a faster, cheaper route to the same outcome
| as the courts, rather than a steamroller that avoids all
| accountability for the company.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| >Arbitration does help with the problem of overwhelmed and
| expensive courts. What is needed is fair arbitration.
|
| That sounds like you want all the benefits of an actual
| court without all the costs of an actual court?
| avidiax wrote:
| I want the court result for free and instantaneously.
|
| Barring that, faster and cheaper is better.
|
| Simply limiting discovery, counterbalanced by loosened
| rules of evidence, followed by allowing specialist
| arbiters and avoiding the multi-year wait for a court
| proceeding seems to be faster and cheaper. There is a
| small error introduced by allowing discovery of 1,000
| pages of emails instead of 100,000, and by allowing
| hearsay or affidavits, but probably most disputes would
| not strictly depend on deposing a dozen people and
| interpreting the 23rd box of company documents.
| vr46 wrote:
| Public interest argument is strong here
| grokcodec wrote:
| "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things
| and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their
| vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and
| let other people clean up the mess they had made." -- F. Scott
| Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Much easier to do when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from
| the world. The cloud companies ability to not share the
| experience of those using the service, to be remote, is a much
| greater retreat than what was possible 101 years ago, it feels
| like.
| simpaticoder wrote:
| I hear lots of talk about concentration of power, but too
| little about its amplification. It was a quieter world before
| amplifiers, both literally and figuratively.
| elmomle wrote:
| It has been discussed for generations, but unsurprisingly
| the people with the megaphones don't tend to promote that
| angle.
|
| https://inist.org/library/1982-03-21.Illich.Silence%20is%20
| a...
| normie3000 wrote:
| > when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world
|
| That sure is an impressive ping!
| ryandrake wrote:
| The leadership team of Meta (and all other giant mega corps)
| are much more isolated from the real world than 40ms and a
| firewall. _These people don 't interact in any way with
| normal people._ They live in a different world than us, and
| don't even think about us, let alone wonder if their actions
| are hurting us. Do you think Zucc does his own shopping and
| has to interact with store employees? Do you think he talks
| to any of the staff of plumbers, electricians, HVAC repair
| people, gardeners, who maintain his homes? Do you think he
| flies commercial and sits next to randos in business class?
| Do you think he goes down to the DMV and stands in line to
| renew his driver's license? These guys have staff in their
| orbit who arrange for all these things to just magically
| happen, so royalty doesn't have to come into direct contact
| with the commoners. The billionaire class is thoroughly
| insulated from us through multiple layers of staff and staff
| of staff.
| chrisrogers wrote:
| The billionaire class can do those things, but they don't
| have to. Same with non-celebrity Royalty.
| alterom wrote:
| They don't have to.
|
| But they do.
| dboreham wrote:
| There are some reasons they may have to: risk of being
| kidnapped, risk of random people bothering them for
| money, risk of random crazy people attacking them,
| illogicality of waiting hours in a TSA line for no other
| reason than "that's what poor people do".
| boca_honey wrote:
| Exactly. If I was one of those people, no one but my
| 30-50 most trusted friends and family members would be
| allowed 100 yards near me.
|
| I would be afraid for my safety 24/7, for my
| children's... For my private life (I would never talk
| about my personal opinions to anyone outside of my
| immediate family). Etc.
|
| Think Taylor Swift in Walmart. She could probably get
| trampled over and die (no joke). Zuckerberg or Gates in a
| bar or a county fair? Probably beaten to death or shot.
|
| It's easy for us to imagine they live isolated from
| regular people because they think they're better than us
| (although they probably think that)... But the reality is
| that regular people are dangerous for this kind of
| people.
| phs318u wrote:
| > Zuckerberg or Gates in a bar or a county fair? Probably
| beaten to death or shot.
|
| I think you're probably right about these two. However if
| I try and imagine someone like, say, Warren Buffet or
| Jimmy Carter at a public place like that I think they'd
| do ok. The difference being of course that they're not
| arseholes.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Hence why I don't think private jets are such a bad idea.
|
| Imagine getting anywhere near Taylor Swift (landside) in
| an airport terminal when on tour. She wouldn't be the
| only one trampled.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Do you think he talks to any of the staff of plumbers,
| electricians, HVAC repair people, gardeners, who maintain
| his homes?
|
| Believe it or not, but yes. I remember overseeing his
| terrarium while he was still a small lizard, barely hatched
| from an egg.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| If my high school English is worth anything, that quote has
| nothing to do with being careless, or the privileges accorded
| to wealth, but is in fact a metaphor for the external struggle
| of chicken farmers against predators.
|
| /s
| surprisetalk wrote:
| This book was SO GOOD.
|
| It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only
| created suffering if that suffering was _required_ for certain
| goals. It 's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum
| game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make
| ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care
| to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those
| folks could feel how much harm they've caused.
| 0x3f wrote:
| I'm not sure these are functionally any different. Perhaps not
| caring is required to achieve certain goals.
| truegoric wrote:
| Why injustice being a zero-sum game would make it easier to
| bear?
| simpaticoder wrote:
| Because at least someone benefits. It's why theft is arguably
| better than vandalism. If you steal the thing, at least
| _someone_ gets to use it. If it 's vandalized, no-one does.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > Because at least someone benefits
|
| Arguably this makes it worse, not better
| rectang wrote:
| Indeed, that's why "salting the earth" is an age-old
| military tactic. "If I can't have it, then neither can
| you."
|
| But I can also see why someone might wish for there to be
| a reason behind suffering.
| malfist wrote:
| Not op but because there's a reason for injustice. It's not
| just chaos for choas's sake
| analog8374 wrote:
| Understanding takes effort too, effort that might be better
| spent creating value.
|
| Also, understanding creates culpability. So that's a downside.
| It's like people who walk in front of you on the road and
| pretend to not notice you. If I don't see the badness then I am
| not responsible for the badness.
|
| And thirdly, never underestimate people's power to ignore.
| rectang wrote:
| > _never underestimate people 's power to ignore._
|
| One of the hardest things to do is to put yourself in the
| place of those you see as villains and recognize that they
| generally see themselves as heroes. The human capacity for
| self-justification is extremely powerful.
| analog8374 wrote:
| It's the flipside of focus/concentration of attention.
| Which is the key trick underlying all science, engineering,
| scholarship etc. The foundation of our civilization.
|
| So you might say that a vast ignorance is implicit to our
| way of life.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > This book was SO GOOD.
|
| One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the
| author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was
| deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold
| the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to
| the very core. It was only after she got separated from the
| inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it.
|
| So while reading it, be careful about who you hold up as a
| hero. In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be
| untrustworthy narrators.
| zaphar wrote:
| There is nuance here though. Taking a step back and learning
| from an experience is something to be celebrated.
| jmull wrote:
| A strange response.
|
| Rather than address the comment you change the subject,
| "whaddabout the author!"
|
| Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of "Meta"?
|
| (lol, that name gets me every time. Might as well have
| renamed themselves NoIdeaWhatToDoNow)
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Because recognizing the author as conflicted and an
| unreliable narrator changes how you should weight and
| consider the information they are providing. It doesn't
| necessarily mean anything is untrue - but it does add
| extra, valuable information to how much you trust it.
|
| If someone tells me something, I'm mostly likely to believe
| it without further investigation. But not always.
| jmull wrote:
| Another one. Deflecting the criticism of Meta with a
| "whaddabout the author!"
|
| Formed as an answer to a question, but _not one that was
| asked_.
|
| A different account than last time, though, so I'll ask
| you too: Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of
| Meta (lol)?
| bena wrote:
| I think the point is that up until she was fired, she
| _was_ Meta. She wasn't a random employee, she was their
| global public policy director. She wasn't just
| implementing policy, she was responsible for creating it.
|
| The question remains whether or not she would have
| written this book had she not been fired.
|
| It's not like she quit due to her ethical objections
| jmull wrote:
| A third "whaddabout the author"!
|
| It's almost as if...
| tzs wrote:
| The question does indeed remain, but is it a question
| whose answer matters?
|
| If someone exposes a shady organization why should I care
| if they did it for ethical reasons or for something less
| noble like revenge for getting kicked out of that
| organization?
| bena wrote:
| Because it doesn't really target the issue.
|
| Would she go do the same job at Alphabet? X? Probably, if
| they'd have her.
|
| And the only real thing that'd happened is the government
| has been used to remove other companies' competition.
|
| Hooray I guess
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > but is it a question whose answer matters
|
| Yes. 100%. And the fact that you're not seeing why it
| does is confounding to me.
|
| This person has shown that they are willing to harm
| society (for their own benefit, presumably); by active
| choice. And, as such, anything they say needs to be
| viewed through the lens of "is this person lying for
| their own benefit".
|
| 1. Their previous actions do mean that we should not
| trust what they are saying outright, we should do (more)
| work verifying the information they provide.
|
| 2. Their previous actions to _not_ mean we should avoid
| holding other accountable when the information provided
| turns out to be true.
|
| You're asking your question like someone is arguing that
| this person's information doesn't matter (2); but the
| point being made is that we should (1).
| mech422 wrote:
| >> but is it a question whose answer matters?
|
| I think it does? "scummy person loses job, finds another
| way to cash in" almost seems to becoming a trope? I think
| it raises questions about what is left _out_ of the book,
| not just what's in it - are the issues raised the
| worst/most important, or just the ones that will sell the
| most books? Did we really need someone to 'tell us'
| meta/social media can be evil?
|
| There are reasons that (some) criminals are not allowed
| to profit from books/movies about their crimes.
|
| Anyway, that's just my general feelings about this sort
| book - I've never heard of the book or the author. And I
| honestly have no interest in reading it. Based on what
| I'm reading here - that would basically be
| rewarding/enriching one of the 'bad actors' ?
| pests wrote:
| > The question remains whether or not she would have
| written this book had she not been fired.
|
| Assume the answer is no. What does this change about any
| of this?
| bena wrote:
| She's attempting to use the public to bludgeon Meta.
|
| This is a fight among shitty people. I will not lionize
| either side. They both contributed to the shitty state of
| affairs today.
|
| Meta can burn and she can go broke. I'm fine with both
| pests wrote:
| That's a good reaction to have.
|
| Thankfully she wrote the book so we know about all these
| bad deeds.
| prepend wrote:
| I don't think the book revealed anything new about FB's
| bad deeds, though. Was there novel info?
|
| I think its just more exposure for already bad things.
|
| Had she had a trove of emails or something, I might thing
| differently.
|
| This is quite different from the recent lawsuits that
| produced novel material and evidence.
| pests wrote:
| Knowing something is happening and reading detailed
| descriptions of them actually occurring is different,
| IMO. I learned things I didn't know while reading it, at
| least.
| utbabya wrote:
| Even justice system considers the trustworthiness of a
| witness, evaluating incentive, conflict of interest.
|
| Having worked in another FAANG, I realize a large number
| of criticisms do come from imaginations, since I could
| see the contrast first hand. Nobody could tell exactly
| the consequences of all actions, most of the time it's
| just a buncha folks trying to figure out what to do,
| experimenting, iterating. Have you tried executing a
| conspiracy, like a surprise party? Good luck keeping a
| secret with more than 5 people.
|
| There's also the problem of perspective. To a less
| technical engineer who don't know what they don't know,
| having their deliverable rejected time and again could
| feel like a conspiracy against them. If you read a blog
| post from them you'd think the culture is very toxic when
| everyone is doing their best juggling to be considerate
| while keeping the quality high.
|
| As with others commenting on this, I've no idea how true
| the book is, in fact I have never read it. OTOH, even
| without the book, researches saying social media is
| making teenagers depress look convincing to me, and,
| although it's a losing battle, privacy matters a lot to
| me so I've personally stopped using social media for many
| years.
|
| None of these give me full confidence to trust nor
| distrust the narrator, for things that you can't observe
| externally. It's all percentage.
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| Many of the juicy stories from the book have no
| supporting evidence other than the claims of the author.
| Their credibility is all we have to go on here. If
| someone wrote a message here saying that they were a fly
| on the wall at the publisher's office where they had a
| workshop inventing these stories to sell more books,
| you'd be right to question their motives.
| croes wrote:
| The fate of every whistleblower
| Mezzie wrote:
| I believe what Sarah Wynn-Williams wrote in Careless
| People.
|
| I also think she's shown herself to be a person I'd want to
| stay away from.
|
| The reason this matters to me is because the more media
| attention Ms. Wynn-Williams gets, the more her ideas of
| what we should do about Meta will spread and be given
| credence. The more _she_ will be given credence outside of
| simply reporting what she saw. I can both believe what she
| says and think it 's best to stop fanning the flames and
| giving her personal attention.
|
| This entire saga reads to me as intra-elite fighting: Ms.
| Wynn-Williams is representing the cultural/educational
| elite, and obviously the Meta execs are the tech elite. As
| an ordinary person, I'm not under any delusion that either
| side has my best interest in mind when they fight, or when
| they advance policy, regulatory, or other suggestions. The
| derision and disdain Ms. Wynn-Williams has for people not
| in her milieu throw up a lot of red flags for me.
|
| It comes down to believing that Ms. Wynn-Williams wants to
| _hurt Meta_ , not to _help us_.
|
| I also believe that blindly supporting people or
| organizations just because they also hate people or
| organizations you hate is a very bad idea. The enemy of
| your enemy can still be your enemy. In this case, regarding
| technological politics, Zuck and co. want us to become
| braindead addicted zombies, and Ms. Wynn-Williams will want
| us to have no control or access at all, because we can't
| handle it and it's for our own good. She's from the
| cultural group pushing for things like age restriction and
| verification, devices you can't root/restricting what you
| can install on your own device, etc. Both are bad. One sees
| us as cattle and the other sees us as toddlers.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The fact that she did end up setting herself apart is what's
| remarkable. For every one of her who was able to self-
| reflect, become horrified of the ethics of what she was
| doing, and took the hard steps of stopping and breaking away,
| how many current and former Meta employees _don 't do this
| reflection_ and remain contributors to the problem? 1:100?
| 1:1,000? 1:10,000?
| Oarch wrote:
| A few years ago I had a date with a backend engineer at
| Meta.
|
| I asked if they'd ever considered the societal implications
| of the work they did. They said "Oh wow I've never even
| thought about it". Probably a solid hire from Meta's
| perspective.
| kingofmen wrote:
| Or you missed the eye-rolling sarcasm in the answer they
| have to give on _every goddam first date_.
| Dumbledumb wrote:
| Getting to know the views and values of your date is not
| a weird thing to do on the first date. If it's a question
| that annoys them, they should consider why.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Maybe I'm just a wacky Bleeding-Heart, but I don't think
| it's unreasonable to expect someone who worked on a
| product that amplified hate, leading up to a massacre in
| Myanmar, to at least address that without sarcasm while
| getting to know them.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| Maybe it's a question for the third date?
| throwanem wrote:
| Imagine dating someone who works at Facebook, though. I
| can't imagine who would be so utterly dense as to offer
| so presumptuous a complaint, but he'd better be at least
| a 13 out of 10 or I'm not even bothering to pretend to go
| to the bathroom and then sneak out the back.
| brabel wrote:
| That can only be a sarcastic answer, don't you think??
| You really believe people would get a job at former
| Facebook, after lots of scandals have been exposed, and
| not even think about that?? Sorry no way.
| SpaceNoodled wrote:
| You seriously underestimate how myopic people can be. Not
| everyone is a sophisticated and socially aware HN
| commenter like you and I.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You sound fun to date
| nostrademons wrote:
| I know an ex-Facebook employee who told me that "Nobody
| at Facebook ever makes a conscious decision about whether
| something is good or bad. You are given a metric, and
| your job is to make that metric go up. If it turns out
| that making the metric go up has negative consequences
| [for the business, I don't think it's anyone's job to
| worry about the rest of society], then somebody else is
| given another metric to ameliorate the negative
| consequences of you making your metric go up."
|
| He didn't last all that long, he had a conscience. I've
| heard similar things, but not quite in such clear words,
| from several other people I know who have worked at
| Facebook/Meta.
| motbus3 wrote:
| I know couple of people who said exactly same thing. One
| of them is quite smart and I asked what was his/her
| personal opinion and I've heard: "I'd rather not talk
| about it ever again"
| knollimar wrote:
| That sounds mysterious and important
| bena wrote:
| She didn't set herself apart. She was fired. She was forced
| apart.
|
| That's the issue here. Is this someone who found their
| morals or someone who found a stick with which to strike
| back at those who hurt her?
|
| One of those doesn't require her to change at all.
| petre wrote:
| Even if she was fired it was an act of courage and a step
| in the right direction to write a book about it. The
| company is cancer, no wonder they named it Meta.
| brabel wrote:
| Courage guided by righteousness or vengeance? I feel like
| the motivation is very important here.
| advael wrote:
| I don't particularly think so. What matters is whether
| the stuff in the book was true, not whether the author is
| of unassailable character
| ryandrake wrote:
| When one's goal is to look for any reason to downplay
| facts, questioning the character of the messenger is a
| standard tactic.
| advael wrote:
| Indeed it is. One can't help but wonder why such a well-
| known distraction tactic still remains so effective
| against so many
| dylan604 wrote:
| Could be courage guided by a paycheck. Would not be
| surprised if the publisher did not reach out directly to
| suggest writing a book.
| prepend wrote:
| How is it courageous? She's profiting off her book. Seems
| pretty normal.
| petre wrote:
| Are all these comments written by meta AI bots?
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| Did you read the book? Because that's not the story, she
| way too many opportunities to do that, yet didn't. Only
| after she stopped getting paid, she did an "expose".
|
| I hate facebook more than the next guy but this person just
| helped Facebook to accomplish usual evil things, and only
| stopped once she cannot profit. I'm pretty sure she didn't
| start that way or maybe even saw it that way, but
| objectively (in her own narrative, if you only take actions
| and ignore her own emotional justifications) that's what
| happened.
| jancsika wrote:
| You read the book. Did she have the receipts or not?
| mykowebhn wrote:
| To all future whistle-blowers: Please ignore comments like
| this one! What you are doing is a valuable service to
| society.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| I haven't read the book, but I don't think there's anything
| dishonest about needing distance to see the context of what
| she was a part of. Now, if she is trying to paint herself as
| completely outside of that even while she was knee-deep in
| it, that's a different matter but hindsight isn't something
| to be dismissed.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If we require every whistleblower to be a saint, then we'll
| never hear a whistle. If you have a serious criticism of
| _their credibility_ , that's potentially different, but
| arbitrary criticisms of someone's moral worth is mostly
| irrelevant.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| The fact that someone actively worked against the welfare
| of society as a whole, in significant and impactful ways,
| _is_ a criticism of their credibility. It speaks to their
| morals and empathy for others.
|
| It doesn't mean that what they're saying is a lie, but it
| puts them firmly in the bucket where what they say needs to
| be verified.
| navane wrote:
| It doesn't matter if she's as bad as the others. The
| message is that the others are bad. Pointing out that
| she's also bad is meek at best.
| julianeon wrote:
| We would have no book if the author was a hero: they would
| say "I'm not doing this," quit, and that would be the end of
| it. By this definition, only an unheroic person could've
| written it. By the same definition, an firsthand expose of
| Meta could never be written by a trustworthy person.
|
| This obviously protects the company: you are ceding this
| ground to them, "No trustworthy person could work at your
| company and write an expose." I don't think we should cede
| that to them.
| a4isms wrote:
| _Why is it that the only people willing to testify against
| the cartel are murderers, drug dealers, and bank robbers?
| These are not trustworthy witnesses._
|
| Same problem.
| prepend wrote:
| Not really. Author could have whistleblown and quit early
| on revealing unsavory things.
|
| The book is mainly attempts to embarass Zuck (eg, he's
| sweaty, he's not good at Catan, etc).
| mekoka wrote:
| GP's point is not that only heroes should tell the tale,
| but rather that in this case the whistleblower was _also_
| an active part of the problem, but sought to distance
| herself from her then behavior by swapping it down instead
| for a more passive lack of situational awereness. That is,
| she reached for stupidity as an escape hatch from having to
| reckon with her own malice. And she 's now being celebrated
| for it.
|
| The lack of accountability paired with the celebration of
| the "hero" are the problem. Not the fact of her testimony.
|
| EDIT: Some people who have similarly testified acknowledged
| the part they played in the situation they later denounced.
| So, it is possible for the story to be told and for the
| teller to also say "I knew what was up. I said nothing. I
| did nothing. I'm sorry."
| SilverElfin wrote:
| You are probably right that she was part of it all. There
| what money and power do to you. We need to limit it. The eat
| the rich stuff is the wrong messaging but the right goal. We
| need to reduce concentration of wealth and power.
| ktimespi wrote:
| Yeah, the fact that she realized what's going on and still
| worked tirelessly to give Mark / Facebook more negotiating
| power speaks volumes. I also can't buy the whole "I have
| financial woes and can't escape" spin that she puts on her
| situation.
|
| Otherwise, great book.
| prepend wrote:
| "I only make $4M/ year in RSUs and am an attorney, however
| will I pay for daycare for my three kids and teacher
| husband. I better continue acting unethically and profiting
| from hosing people."
|
| This was such a weird argument. I think the author may
| actually be self-deluding herself as I can't imagine her or
| her editors think anyone buys this argument.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Waking up from a cult doesn't make you a hero, but stopping
| the cult might.
| j45 wrote:
| Sometimes you can still learn from a story.
|
| Humans are about making mistakes and learning from them, not
| hiding behind the disease of perfectionism.
|
| If there's something the author needs to say, I'm sure they
| are capable of using their words.
|
| The other side that could have happened so easily is so much
| silence that there was no book.
| jmye wrote:
| > I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a
| hero
|
| Cool, then don't do that.
|
| _Every single_ employee at Meta is still vile and making the
| world a worse place every single day, and anything exposing
| the depths of their shittiness, no matter the source, is a
| good thing.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| > In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be
| untrustworthy narrators.
|
| Even if you take her as trustworthy narrator (which I mostly
| did) she's stil evil in this story up until the publishing
| book.
| sifar wrote:
| I felt it more being naive idealism in the beginning coupled
| with the thrill of achieving things before the realization. Yet
| certain things stand out like her trip to Myanmar. Why to
| subject oneself through that in that condition.
|
| The title is very apt, the executives, they simply didn't care.
| That was a fascinating glimpse
| toss1 wrote:
| >> its executives just didn't care to understand the
| consequences of their actions.
|
| This, a day or two after a top story about Marc Andreessen
| refusing to engage in introspection.
|
| Nah, there's not a pattern here among the tech billionaires ...
| right?
| prepend wrote:
| I think the author was complicit and only complained once FB
| stopped paying her.
|
| It was weird how the author claimed not to know how facebook
| targeted ads worked until 2016/2017 after she had made
| millions.
| mortoc wrote:
| Literally anyone with the access to these people would be
| someone making bank. Do you think Cheryl Sandberg would
| bother to talk to a poor person?
|
| That's kinda the nature of whistle-blowing. You're complicit,
| you have inside knowledge and THEN you choose to do the right
| thing. Snowden worked for the NSA before he exposed their
| lies about spying on US citizens, you think he did literally
| no work towards that end before blowing the whistle?
| saltyoldman wrote:
| It's kind of the reason C-execs (and up) stay, the company
| keeps paying them more and more to hold the secrets.
| Aunche wrote:
| If the author didn't want others to think of her as a
| "careless person", she should have refused a severance with
| a nondisparagement clause.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| So you should never be allowed to comment on the behaviour of
| companies you worked for?
| boca_honey wrote:
| Allowed, sure. Celebrated, not really.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| Seems to be a common pattern, it's better than the
| alternative but nonetheless it's not the brag they think
| it's.
| tim333 wrote:
| Though if she was complicit she's probably in a good position
| to expose it now things have changed.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| So what? If we need unscrupulous people to tell us what other
| unscrupulous people do, so what?
| stavros wrote:
| Nothing, just keep in mind they're still unscrupulous.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That pretty much describes confidential informants (used by
| the police, all the time). Many of these CIs are risking a
| lot more than just getting sued, and they are seldom
| angels. Many of them do it, so they won't go down with the
| ship, or because the cops have real leverage over them.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| Do you work in or closely follow the tech world?
|
| I read this book thinking that it'll be some expose but
| honestly it was underwhelming in a sense, it's almost better
| than I thought. Everything in the book either was obvious for
| anyone who worked in the industry, or better than I thought
| it'd be. There were some weird personal things about
| Zuckerberg, but even those were expected or given.
|
| It was an OK read, however as I read it all I can think of
| author is just a naive person who didn't know what she was
| getting into, and remained naive for a long time. Author
| herself say this in the book couple of times as well.
|
| Maybe this is a book that's "eye opening" to someone who's an
| outsider but if you are somehow in this business the book is
| practically nothing burger, or even worse actually make
| Facebook look better than I actually have imagined they would
| be.
|
| Another similar book is : "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the
| Start-Up Bubble", I read it expecting some crazy story, but it
| was yet another case of an outsider's take of the standard
| industry practice. I'm sure this is interesting for those never
| been in these circles, but for everyone else it's just another
| day in today's tech world. (Just to be clear, I don't support
| or condone any of this stuff but it's such a common place and
| given, unfortunately not even interesting at this point).
| gfody wrote:
| normalizing toxic as standard industry practice is sort of
| like condoning it, imo
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| It's like saying "Today's big companies follow lots of dark
| patterns such as forcing customers to call them to close
| their accounts, which became a standard practice in banks,
| SaaS and other businesses." It's an observation, nothing
| more than that.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| You posed it as an observation only known to insiders of
| the industry. This book was targeted to the general
| public. By saying 'its no big deal' to anyone who thinks
| it is, you are are saying that those in the industry are
| normalized to it, and that the normalization should be
| the status quo. Like working in a factory farm
| slaughterhouse and saying everyone should be normalized
| to the suffering that goes on in there, instead of trying
| to change it.
| mekoka wrote:
| It's a strange outlook. How often do you still get shocked
| that a politician lied? Do you cultivate the surprise
| effect by fear of feeling complicit if your reaction
| instead is "what else is new?"
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| A good reminder not to sign contracts with non-disparagement
| clauses, if you can help it. Seems like good territory for
| California to ban like they did with non-competes. At the very
| least they should be restricted from inclusion in severance
| agreements - at that point the company already has you over a
| barrel.
| RIMR wrote:
| I mean, a reasonable non-disparagement clause for your current
| employees makes sense. You don't want your employees actively
| undermining the company in public. If they don't believe in
| what you're doing, they should be able to quit and say whatever
| they want. It should end immediately when your employment ends.
| It should be illegal to make it compulsary for severance
| packages, as many companies do.
|
| And there need to be serious regulations about how these
| agreements can be used, and those regulations should protect
| whistleblowers at all costs. Like a public figure suing for
| libel/slander/defamation, the burden of proving statements
| false should rest entirely with the company.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| What's the need for a non-disparagement clause then? If
| they're a current employee, you have their continued
| employment as leverage.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The clause in question didn't even arise until after
| employment ended. Again, this person faced no obligation to
| sign this contract. They wanted the payment, so they signed
| it.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| I'm not sure we can hold individuals responsible for signing
| these non-disparagement clauses. They often don't have a lawyer
| to review the paperwork and, I am sure, employers like Facebook
| aren't going to wait for a new hire to have a lawyer review
| that paperwork. There's a real pressure to sign everything with
| HR and get on to starting your new role.
|
| Plus the power imbalance.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| If you can't hold individuals responsible for signing
| contracts on the premise that they might not read them,
| you've simultaneously invalidated most contracts, increased
| the cost to enter a contract (essentially subsidizing the law
| industry), and severely limited the ability for individuals
| to enter into contracts -- not to mention infantilizing
| adults who are fully capable of reading a document before
| signing it.
|
| Furthermore, this was a severance agreement, not employment
| agreement, so having a lawyer review your contract is not
| going to delay you from starting your role.
|
| I have my issues with this situation, but "they might not
| have read/understood the contract" isn't one of them.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Oh no, I wasn't clear: I am sure people read these
| agreements. I think most of the time, they don't understand
| them. Also, we can't always understand how these agreements
| might be applied even if we do think that we understand
| them.
|
| I don't think we can hold people responsible for these
| types of contracts if they are under duress, for instance,
| under threat of the loss of their job. In this case the
| person signed in order to get the promised severance
| package, without which they wouldn't be able to continue
| with life-saving medical coverage, in my opinion that would
| also be under duress.
| prepend wrote:
| In this case the author is an attorney, so can presumably
| understand a contract she signed.
|
| And the non-disparagement wasnt in her hire agreement, it was
| in her severance agreement, in exchange for a negotiated
| amount of money. Author was wealthy enough to afford
| dedicated lawyers to review.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is going to be one of those threads with LLM-grade comments
| about stealing your information and arbitration and this and that
| but I'm early enough that I can shame all of you first by at
| least having read the first page of this book so I can tell you
| that the author has had an interesting life. The book starts with
| an actual shark attack. It's pretty famous, it's in the news and
| stuff: https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360667776/sister-hits-
| bac...
|
| The story is pretty close to this one in TAL:
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/476/transcript so many people on
| reddit speculate it's the same. I never verified or I missed that
| in the book if it says so.
|
| Then she apparently nearly died again giving birth to one of her
| children. And then here with the Zuckexpose. I'm reminded that
| people live all sorts of lives full of detail and story. Great
| stuff.
| lucasay wrote:
| non-disparagement clauses doing a lot of heavy lifting here
| garethsprice wrote:
| Ordered a hard copy of the book, don't trust that an eBook
| version won't get revoked or edited at some point.
|
| Timely given I just tried to sign into Meta for the first time in
| a year or two as I am being required to work on a Marketing API
| integration, got prompted for a video selfie(!) and my account is
| now in "Community Review" as maybe my expression was too grumpy
| about being required to present myself for inspection. Abhorrent
| company.
| gortok wrote:
| Having listened to the book on Audible, I'm both shocked at the
| behavior of the executive team, and not surprised all at the same
| time. What bothers me about all of this is what it says about us.
| It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass
| just because they make overtures towards something we care about.
|
| We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we
| teach our children to act this way, but we're perfectly willing
| to allow fully grown adults to act like this.
|
| Here's just one example, there are plenty more:
|
| Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in her
| bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and
| vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'.
|
| Everyone in the orbit of the executive team knew about this
| behavior, and everyone gave it a pass, even going so far as to
| defend it and to protect Cheryl. This behavior should be
| universally deplored, and yet is not.
| captainbland wrote:
| I think the overtures about things we care about more just
| provide plausible deniability and that when you dig down,
| people are more concerned about the risks of challenging the
| wealthy than they are about such window dressing.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| By allowing powerful adults to act this way, we are in a sense
| teaching our children to act this way too.
| ElProlactin wrote:
| Getting rich has been the American dream for a very long
| time. Unfortunately, many Americans only pretend to care that
| it matters how you get rich.
| scrubs wrote:
| America doesn't own greed. Hardly.
|
| But like the movie American Psycho the American
| presentation of greed is starkly in your face ... it's
| something horrifying to see
| scrubs wrote:
| Well absolutely. Half the times we're tough on kids is in
| hopes they don't permanently turn into adults their behavior
| reminds of
|
| And as kids learning from adults (although the subject matter
| is different) is exemplified in To Kill a Mockingbird.
|
| As of today I am periodically embarrassed to be an American.
| Periodic in the sense that every once in a while the
| shameless behavior of elites feels like I ok'd in the
| presence of foreigners. Today's climate reminds that in our
| society i guess as always the suck-ups, butt kisserers, and
| hustle at all costs is alive and well in the top 10% of
| society.
|
| Relatedly, this is ultimately why European courts went they
| way of the dodo. Moody kings, palace intrigue, the
| maneuvering for kinship to power, the gossip, the scandals
| whilst spending stupid money so aggravated people we quit.
|
| I seriously dislike this current environment. And I can
| report not everybody is that way. They're still a few classy
| lads and ladies out there... but gosh the players are no
| longer afraid of sunlight at the same time
| Noaidi wrote:
| Yes, all of this happens (and worse!) and still no boycott of
| Facebook. We have been turned into a country of dopamine
| deficient addicts.
|
| And now these same companies are funding a useless war, killing
| innocent children, and soon, collapsing the world economy.
|
| If you still use these platforms knowing what we know now you
| are just as complicit as every executive.
|
| https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Hard to boycott something you quit using 10 years ago.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| 'We' as in the nation (world?) at large. FaceBook hasn't
| faced a large-scale boycott
| none2585 wrote:
| I'm in your boat, but I've been thinking more lately around
| how we create competitors to the sorts of things that
| people claim "lock them in" to using Facebook (events and
| messenger are the ones I hear the most anecdotally).
|
| Make these things reasonably self-sustaining monetarily (no
| ads) and just let it run.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Messenger does 3 things right:
|
| 1. Being able to discover people by name / surname, no
| phone number necessary. This is the most important
| privacy feature people care about, it's ironic that Meta
| had it from the get-go, while other platforms have barely
| caught up.
|
| 2. Used to have frictionless message sync, including in
| the event of a catastrophic loss of all devices, which
| put it far ahead of most apps (sadly nerfed by E2E).
|
| 3. A much better group implementation than Whatsapp /
| iMessage (no need to maintain a contacts list, no need to
| share phone numbers with everybody, you know who
| everybody is by name and surname). This is perfect for
| semi-professional groups where people are acquainted but
| not close with each other, especially when some members
| hold positions of power and don't wish to receive calls
| from irate people). Parents / teachers or blue-collar
| coworkers are perfect examples.
|
| It's sad that all these apps are converging on the same
| set of features and mis-features, with nobody (except
| Telegram) really exploring the tradeoff space any more.
| breve wrote:
| Facebook is an addiction for many people. Mark Zuckerberg
| thinks Facebook users are "dumb fucks":
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-
| im...
| shmichael wrote:
| On the other side of every "useless war" is the what if
| question. Killing Hitler before WWII would have been seen as
| a cruel interference with German sovereignty.
|
| Anyway it would be wise not to tie social network corporate
| affairs to the war. The two are not linked in a more
| significant way than a social network in general being linked
| to such affairs as a media.
| crote wrote:
| Are we going to ignore how Zuckerberg dines with the
| president, donated a $1M to his inauguration fund, put
| Trump allies in high positions at Meta, loosened the
| moderation rules in Trump's favour, and got appointed to
| the president's Science and Tech Council only a few days
| ago?
|
| If you are _that_ deeply intertwined you can 't claim
| ignorance and innocense on the inconvenient stuff - like
| the Iran War.
|
| If you want to stay with WWII metaphors: if you contributed
| to putting Hitler in power and benefited from Hitler's
| favors, you were complicit to the Holocaust.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we
| teach our children to act this way, but we're perfectly willing
| to allow fully grown adults to act like this.
|
| Speak to a group of K-12 teachers.
|
| We (as a society/culture) are _absolutely_ giving our children
| passes and teaching them to act this way.
| II2II wrote:
| > Speak to a group of K-12 teachers.
|
| > We (as a society/culture) are absolutely giving our
| children passes and teaching them to act this way.
|
| That depends upon where you teach. I've worked in schools
| where families who would put up with that type of behaviour
| were an anomaly. The school sends the same message.
|
| Of course, one can argue that society is sending conflicting
| messages. Yet then my question would be: are those messages
| coming from people who are truly reflective of society? Those
| messages are certainly coming from the loudest voices, voices
| that are (more often than not) controlled by a few
| organizations that seem to have a moral compass that points
| towards the profit of the organization rather than social
| welfare. Even then I have to wonder whether the views of the
| organization reflect the views of the people it is composed
| of.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yes, it does. I was speaking generally. I think if you
| selected teachers at random from the entire set of K-12
| teachers in America, you'd find more who _do_ have to deal
| with that behavior than don 't.
| prepend wrote:
| I think that was more about trying, in a dumb way, to make the
| pregnant woman not work all night than sexual harassment.
|
| The author was 8 months pregnant and was going to stay up for
| 12 hours doing stuff. This seemed more like a commanding boss
| trying to stop a workaholic from working.
| bostik wrote:
| > _Cheryl Sandberg inviting the author of the book to sleep in
| her bed next to her on the company jet, and the petulent and
| vindictive behavior when the author said 'no'._
|
| Considering the timing... does that mean MeToo doesn't apply if
| the predator is also a woman?
|
| Sexual advances from a position of power are simply not okay.
| (Weirdly as a society we appear to have accepted that an older
| woman predating younger men is somehow a cool thing: we call
| them cougars.)
| miltonlost wrote:
| Age gaps in relationships is not inherently negative. Being a
| cougar is not a bad thing. The issue here was that Sandberg
| was the author's manager. Age isn't an issue when all parties
| are adults.
| ElFitz wrote:
| > Age isn't an issue when all parties are adults.
|
| I wouldn't fully agree. All parties being adults doesn't
| inherently remove the advantage very large age and
| experience gaps can give to one party over the other,
| especially when one is barely adult. 18 or 21 is just an
| arbitrary number, and one doesn't suddenly become smart
| about these things just because the law says they are now
| legally full citizens, responsible for their acts and for
| themselves.
|
| But I also agree it doesn't make age gaps between adults
| inherently negative. It's just... complicated.
| whynotminot wrote:
| Can we raise the age of adulthood from 18 to whatever
| acceptable age ends this discourse once and for all?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Probably not, because there's inevitably a transition
| period.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| There's some issues with someone that has very little
| experience being an adult. Once they have a couple years
| out of school and a couple years of being able to drink
| (if relevant), it's basically all the same.
| miki123211 wrote:
| With how fast the world is moving (especially in non-US,
| recently-ish westernized countries that had a lot of
| catching up to do over the last twenty-forty years, think
| former eastern bloc), things aren't so clear-cut.
|
| There's a difference between a person who grew up
| watching video cassettes on their neighbor's VCR, and a
| person who (barely) watched recaps over 1MB/s DSL. Two
| completely different childhoods, two completely different
| cultural experiences, less than 15 years of age
| difference, both people have had "a couple years out of
| school and a couple years of being able to drink."
|
| It's not unworkable, but it's quite like a relationship
| with somebody from a far-away foreign country, maybe
| without the language barrier.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Sure there's a difference in the _kind_ of things they
| 're used to, but it's not giving anyone an advantage
| which is what the earlier posts were about. Maybe a small
| advantage to the younger one which is the opposite of the
| worry above.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Age isn't an issue when all parties are adults.
|
| there's exceptions to every rule but as a general statement
| that's about as false as it gets. With increasing age gap
| between partners divorce and breakup rates go up
| significantly. Cultures with strong aversion to age gaps,
| East Asia for example, have both low divorce rates and out-
| of-wedlock births.
|
| The reason isn't extremely difficult to see, where someone
| is in life, what priorities they have and how responsible
| they are is significantly influenced by age, the rom-com
| industrial complex might have convinced people that
| relationships are about butterflies in the stomach, but in
| reality compatibility matters.
| pc86 wrote:
| People in the C Suite should not be asking any employee to
| join them in bed whether they're that person's manager or
| not.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I think you're just using a narrower definition of
| "manager" than the person you responded to.
| kakacik wrote:
| Fine with that, as long as we agree that it goes both ways
| and is judged same, equality and all. Otherwise deeply
| sexist to use kind words
| liendolucas wrote:
| What it would be terrific is that people that have access to
| Sheryl Sandberg in public repeteadly ask her: "Do you still
| invite your employees to sleep on your private jet's bed?" as
| reminder about how fucked up her mind and demands are.
|
| Same should be applied to the other nasty members of Zuck's
| inner past/present circle.
|
| My inner guts tell me that all these freaks just try out these
| out of place demands to see if people without their money and
| power would actually knee and say "yes" to every request that
| comes out of their mouth.
| astura wrote:
| >We wouldn't give our children a pass like this, nor would we
| teach our children to act this way
|
| Where do you live where this is the case? I'd love to move
| there!
| svnt wrote:
| The job of execs/middle managers seems to often be dual
| parenting: 1) coordinate the capable well-parented employees
| below them, and 2) pander to the usefully myopic spoiled brats
| above.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| I would personally describe employees in big tech as spoiled
| brats.
| mohamedkoubaa wrote:
| Sandberg is famously not known for her ethics
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > It says we're willing to give rich and powerful people a pass
| just because they make overtures towards something we care
| about.
|
| This encapsulates the entire moral bankruptcy of "the Epstein
| class" so perfectly. I highly recommend reading the series
| about the Epstein class by Anand Giridharadas (Giridharadas
| didn't actually coin the term "Epstein class", apparently that
| was Ro Khanna, but he really was the first to popularize and
| clearly define it).
| themafia wrote:
| > It says we're willing
|
| That's not at all what it says. No one is "willing" to have
| this. The fact that this outcome exists is not a demonstration
| of this fact.
|
| What it demonstrates is that the administrative enforcement
| system is broken. It simply does not work when capital exceeds
| an uncertain threshold or when the utility to the intelligence
| agencies is deemed to be of national importance.
|
| It also demonstrates that our legislative system is entirely
| captured. It could fix this with a pen stroke. The people would
| loudly and eagerly support this. Yet no one has put pen to
| paper? Something deeper is clearly wrong here.
|
| Blaming the public for being victims of this regime is insane.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| It's great that she spoke out, but she was complicit in all of
| this too.
|
| https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-fac...
| fwipsy wrote:
| The theme of the book is "power corrupts." Wynn-Williams is not
| an exception. Sometimes she acknowledges it, sometimes she
| glosses over it, but the way the job compromised her own
| morality is one of the most fascinating parts of the book.
|
| I am not sure I would have done better in her place. When it's
| your livelihood (or your friends,) it's so much easier to just
| fall in line. If she'd gotten along personally with the other
| execs, the book wouldn't even exist.
| petcat wrote:
| My understanding is that as part of a severance package she
| received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement"
| clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company.
| The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if
| anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by
| the contract she signed.
|
| It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list.
| But it also sounds like she agreed to this in exchange for a
| lump-sum severance payment, and then broke the contract anyway.
| I'm not sure if this is really that principled of a thing. She
| sought-out and accepted a lot of money for this agreement.
| RIMR wrote:
| It should not be legal to enforce this kind of thing 9 years
| after a person leaves your company. I get that it currently is
| legal, but have some principles. Just because this is legal
| doesn't mean it isn't morally reprehensible, and its legality
| should be challenged.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's a ridiculous constraint to put on the freedom to enter
| into contracts.
| Avicebron wrote:
| So allowing someone to sign themselves into slavery should
| be "legal" because it's "impinging on someone's right to
| enter contracts"? I get that some people balk at "morally
| reprehensible" as some sort of slippery slope, but c'mon we
| as individuals have to function somewhat coherently. As a
| social species reliant on some form of social cohesion (how
| much oil did you refine this morning?) we have to have some
| guidelines.
| jonahx wrote:
| Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses
| illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net
| positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a
| stretch. The situation up for debate is: Should you be
| able to voluntarily accept money in exchange for
| promising not to say bad things about someone or some
| company? I don't see a good faith interpretation of that
| as "signing yourself into slavery".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses
| illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net
| positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a
| stretch.
|
| Arguably, its more like non-compete agreements but with
| the added fact that state enforcement of the agreements
| is in tension with freedom of speech.
|
| But, you know, lots of jurisdictions sharply restrict
| enforceability of non-competes, too.
| wtallis wrote:
| Nobody was trying to _equate_ non-disparagement clauses
| with slavery. The relevance of slavery here is as an
| example of the kind of contract terms that everyone
| should be able to agree are rightly invalid and
| unenforceable. Any argument in favor of contract
| enforceability that would apply to a slavery contract
| just as easily as it applies to a non-disparagement
| contract is a _bad argument_ , or at least woefully
| incomplete. Bringing up slavery serves as a necessary
| reminder that the details and nuance of the contract
| terms and their effects need to be discussed and argued,
| and that an unqualified "contracts should be valid"
| position is untenable and oversimplified.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The general principle is that you shouldn't be able to
| "sign away" something that's a constitutional or human
| right. Like the right to freely speak, the right to
| practice a religion, the right to be paid for work, and
| so on. Imagine if the severance contract specified that
| she had to convert to Islam in order to get her
| severance, or that she had to sacrifice a child. No court
| in the country would consider those clauses conscionable.
| Yet, somehow companies are allowed to gag your free
| speech as a condition in a contract? It makes no sense
| why this is allowed.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Everyone who has a job that requires them to speak for
| their employer signs away their "free speech" right to an
| extent. Your proposal would not lead to a tenable system.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| This is legalized buying people off, yes these contracts
| ought to be illegal and the comparison to slavery (a
| worse, but same category of morally reprehensible power
| dynamic) is completely valid
| jeffbee wrote:
| We already recognize that contracts that violate one
| party's fundamental human rights cannot be enforced
| because they "shock the conscience", in terms that
| American jurists use. This article does not include the
| terms of the non-disparagement clause, or the other terms
| and payments, so we can't really say whether the clause
| is vulnerable to being ruled unenforceable by courts. But
| it's wrong to say that nobody can enter into contracts
| that constrain their speech. People do that all the time.
| prepend wrote:
| I mean it is currently legal in most countries to do
| that.
|
| Read about record contracts. Prince spoke extensively
| about his restrictive contracts.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Legally, your "slavery" distinction is not the same thing
| as agreeing not to speak a certain way about a company.
| Slavery implies that you can be forced to do things that
| you do not want to do, as it is inclusive of future
| decisions by the other party. Agreeing to not so some
| specific action, while it does bind you from future
| freedoms, is exclusive of any other action the party may
| wish you to undertake. (IANAL)
| tuckerman wrote:
| For arbitrary contracts I would agree, but I think
| increasing the limitations in severance agreements
| specifically makes sense. There are already certain
| requirements (at least in California) for severance
| agreements and I think limiting the duration of non-
| disparagement clauses to 1-2 years would be a positive
| change.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I think that's a good proposal.
| mindslight wrote:
| You're invoking a common "libertarian" trope, so I'm going
| to address that larger topic. Right-fundamentalist (ie
| axiomatic) "libertarianism" is fallacious. Logically, by
| asserting an unlimited "right" to contract, one can
| straightforwardly reframe any totalitarian state as merely
| being contracts between the state and its
| citizens/subjects/victims. And simply renaming things
| clearly does not make for a society that respects
| individual liberty!
|
| The only sensible way to approach libertarianism is to
| _qualitatively_ evaluate individual liberty. And being
| prohibited from speaking 8 years after the fact, especially
| when there is a compelling public interest, is in no way
| equitable. If they want her continued silence, they should
| have to buy that on the order of year to year.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Contracts are entered by private individuals, not by the
| state. So your pithy claim to instantly demolish the idea
| is not actually effective.
| mindslight wrote:
| I don't understand your argument. Contracts can generally
| be entered into by private individuals as well as by
| legal entities like the state.
|
| If you're making an argument that the right to contract
| should be unlimited between individuals (and perhaps
| unlimited between legal entities), but should be
| _limited_ when made between individuals and artificial
| legal entities, that would be an interesting framing to
| explore. But afaik it 's not really a popular one.
|
| (although I don't know that such a framework would
| actually invalidate what I said, especially for
| autocratic totalitarian states - each citizen of North
| Korea could just as easily be said to have a contract
| with Kim Jong Un himself)
| cwillu wrote:
| This sort of ridiculous "criticism" is why I have a hard
| time taking libertarians seriously.
| greenchair wrote:
| good observation comrade!
| josephcsible wrote:
| IMO, "freedom to enter into contracts" isn't actual
| freedom, for the same reason that the MIT license isn't
| more free than the GPL despite it allowing more behaviors:
| in both cases, it's basically "permission to have your
| freedom taken away".
| 1qaboutecs wrote:
| The government enforces contracts, so it gets to choose
| which contracts it enforces. Without a functioning judicial
| system (and a law enforcement system to enforce its
| verdicts), a contract is a piece of paper.
|
| Plenty of contracts benefit both parties but are bad for
| society as a whole, and if the government pre-signals which
| sorts of those contracts it will refuse to enforce, this is
| good for society.
| CalChris wrote:
| Article I, Section 10: "No State shall ... pass any ... Law
| impairing the Obligation of Contracts.
|
| This doesn't limit the Feds. Also, a state can prohibit
| non-compete. Etc. Basically, the freedom to _enter_ into a
| contract is not one of the four corndogs of freedom.
| mattbee wrote:
| The law (OK, well, British law) does recognise that many
| terms can be _Unfair_ especially when one of the parties is
| an individual, and especially when it relates to
| employment. They can nullify them on that basis.
| seneca wrote:
| Why would it not be legal to enforce a contract after 9
| years? If she didn't want it enforced after a duration, she
| could have negotiated for that, or just not signed it.
|
| I don't see how it's principled to legally swear to not do
| something, then turn around and do it anyways. She's an
| adult, she has agency, and she chose to enter that contract.
|
| It's also not like we're talking about a legal whistleblower
| here. That act DOES (and should) have a lot of legal
| protections. This is someone writing a book that they
| personally profit from.
| tclancy wrote:
| Because it's unbalanced. The company benefits for as long
| as the ex-employee is alive, the ex-employee's trade,
| theoretically of a high salary and privilege for keeping
| shtum winds down fairly quickly.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I basically agree but as a civil instrument, a contract is
| not a law. The only consequence of violating a contract
| should be having to pay back whatever damages were caused.
| Not prohibitions on behavior or other freedoms. Enforced by
| whom?
|
| Corporations will violate contracts all the time as a cost
| of business if the cost of the violation is less than the
| benefit gained.
| prepend wrote:
| In the US, a contract is considered law. It's just only
| between the parties.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| You will not go to jail for breaking a contract. The only
| remedies are civil.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| There would have been a power imbalance at the point of
| signing. I can well imagine that the implications of that
| particular clause weren't apparent at the time.
|
| As a society (more so here in the UK than in the US, I'll
| grant) we have laws governing what one party may demand of
| the other. They don't prevent a genuine meeting of the
| minds, because enforcement of a contract will only be an
| issue if at least one party _doesn 't_ follow through. But
| they do limit the ability of the company to impose
| sanctions beyond a point.
|
| One limitation in the UK is that penalty clauses that are
| "private fines", like this one, must be based on the actual
| damage caused.
|
| In this case, as in the non-compete case, I would say that
| if a company wants to continue to influence what someone
| does, they should continue to pay them.
| materielle wrote:
| There are all sorts of contracts that are deemed non-
| enforceable. Our government should pass a law that bans
| non-disparagement clauses.
|
| One of the most pressing problems of our time is that these
| large corporations, on balance, have too much power
| compared to the electorate.
| dboreham wrote:
| Needless to say even in the USA, dick-move clauses in
| contracts are not a magic wand that allows anything to be
| enforceable. Contracts can be challenged through
| litigation (e.g. as unconscionable) and there are laws
| (e.g. California state law prohibits non-compete
| clauses).
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| How does this show that corporations have too much power?
| We are literally discussing that this act could easily be
| stopped by legislation. Doesn't that imply they have less
| power than the electorate?
| golem14 wrote:
| Non-competes are, as far as I know, not enforceable either
| at least in some jurisdictions.
| pwdisswordfishy wrote:
| It should not be legal to enforce full stop. If you don't
| want to be disparaged, make your conduct worthy of not being
| disparaged. When you're being lied about, sue for defamation;
| "non-disparagement clauses" are redundant at best, an attack
| on free speech at worst.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| You don't have to agree to a disparagement clause... She
| accepted a lot of money to agree to it.
| alterom wrote:
| Yeah, clearly the employee and the company have the same
| leverage in negotiation here.
|
| It's a free market! If she didn't like the offer, she
| could've just gotten herself fired from some _other_
| company instead. /s
| margalabargala wrote:
| Different entities having different amounts of leverage
| in a negotiation is neither unusual nor inherently
| immoral.
|
| If someone gives you the option to accept $ to sign a
| contract agreeing not talk about something that is legal
| but morally bad, and you say yes, then talk about the
| thing, you will correctly be losing the lawsuit, no
| matter how bad the thing is.
| charcircuit wrote:
| She can just reject the offer. Nothing can compel you to
| sign a contract you don't want to.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| No, but most people want to pay their bills, so they
| "want" to sign the severance agreement.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The company offers you money in exchange for signing
| certain agreements. You are free to decline. There is no
| obligation on either side.
|
| If non disparagement clauses were illegal then perhaps
| the severance amounts would be smaller since there's now
| much less value to the company.
| prepend wrote:
| She was privileged to even get a severance. Most people
| just get fired.
| Hizonner wrote:
| That's nice, but the rest of us didn't accept anything to
| agree to provide a legal system that would enforce it...
| and there's no reason we should.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| We have a system of laws that decide which private
| contracts are enforceable and which are not. So we can
| try to change the law but as it stands we have decided
| that this one is enforceable.
|
| FWIW I agree about not enforcing non disparagement
| clauses but legally that not the world we live in.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| You make it sound like an a la carte option "I'll take
| the standard severance plus the non-disparagement bonus
| please!".
|
| That's not how it works at most companies.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The reason they're not redundant is that we, rightly, don't
| allow people to sue for defamation for many kinds of unfair
| speech and even some kinds of untrue speech. It's not
| defamatory for you to call me careless or mean or rude,
| even if I can produce ironclad proof that you know I'm
| careful and kind.
| prepend wrote:
| She didn't have to agree to the contract. I don't really want
| some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties
| can do with each other.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The only way these sorts of contracts can be enforced is if
| private parties have recourse to government powers- civil
| courts- to enforce them.
|
| Governments could just not help them do that.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| If I am understanding correctly wouldn't that make it a _more_
| principled "thing" on her end? Like if you know they're gonna
| have a good case against you and still blow the whistle anyway,
| isn't that acting through some kind of principle, versus, at
| least, acting out when you feel you will be protected?
| jamiequint wrote:
| No, principled would be refusing to sign the exit agreement
| and forefeiting the money, then writing the book.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| But how are supposed to know in that moment that's what you
| wanna do? Aren't there different ways to be principled?
| jamiequint wrote:
| If you become massively rich from working somewhere, then
| suddenly discover your conscience when you're fired,
| you're bitter, not principled.
| pests wrote:
| Ok and?
|
| Let's say she's bitter, not principled.
|
| Now what? What's different now?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I'd suspect bitter people who embellish and tell
| falsehoods in an attempt to smear the thing they're
| bitter against. At least, more so than a principled
| person would.
| pests wrote:
| Eh, all the same to me in the end. I think if you try to
| avoid all bitterness in life there won't be much left.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You could break the agreement and return the money. I
| doubt anyone could argue that a one time payment can gag
| you for the rest of eternity from certain speech.
| ipython wrote:
| These tools, quite frankly, are simply mechanisms for the
| already rich and powerful to cement their position and sweep
| any misdeeds under the rug.
|
| While I agree that you are technically correct, I also think we
| will look back on this period with disgust just as we did when
| we considered women unworthy of franchise.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > "non-disparagement" clause
|
| Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person
| from disclosing potential illegal activities?
| BeetleB wrote:
| I doubt such clauses can prevent you from disclosing them to
| _relevant authorities_. Disclosing them to the public is a
| whole other matter.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| It's kind of murky.
|
| NLRB under Biden seemed to say that yeah you can disclose
| this to the media, and broad non-disparagements are
| unenforceable. But it's also kind of a toss up depending on
| the NLRB, courts, administration, etc.
|
| Trump's NLRB has rescinded a bunch of that Biden-era
| guidance, so what is enforceable and what isn't? Kind of
| hard to say at this point.
|
| Arbitration agreed with Meta, but who knows what courts
| would say.
|
| https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/nlrb-requires-
| change...
|
| https://www.mintz.com/insights-
| center/viewpoints/2226/2025-0...
| amtamt wrote:
| "disclosing them to relevant authorities" would not bring
| the message to those affected by such carelessness. I would
| think "Disclosing them to the public" brings more awareness
| in the public, and though might be illegal, serves better
| for public good. Legal is not always just or moral.
| ipython wrote:
| It's funny as I see this argument from people who at the
| same time excuse Snowden for publicly exposing government
| surveillance overreach when he had similar tools
| (disclosure to relevant authorities) available to him.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I don't think such clauses have ever been held to prevent
| people from testifying in criminal trials. Signing book deals
| on the other hand...
|
| If it's true that she signed a severance deal, e.g. signed
| this when she was leaving and therefore already knew she was
| agreeing to protect a bunch of snakes.. Well she fucked up.
| At the point when she signed that agreement she was already
| informed and aware of what kind of people she was agreeing to
| not disparage.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Still looking for the part where, in acknowledgement of her
| own culpability, she assigns all book royalties to some
| charity that, say, provides counseling to troubled
| teenagers ...
| ipython wrote:
| So she's expected to not only put her own financial life
| in jeopardy to publish this information, but then to take
| the money that she does have and donate it all to
| charity?
|
| One has to live. And there are not a lot of commercial
| enterprises that pay well that will hire someone who
| publicly flaunts an employment or severance contract.
|
| Give her a break. It's amazing how many nits we have to
| pick with those with little power when they choose to
| exercise it, that we end up excusing wholesale abuses of
| power by those who actually monopolize it.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| There are a lot of defenders of capital on hn, which is
| expected, that's totally fine. But I think we should all
| have a bit of admiration for someone who risked her life
| to shed light into the internals of an arguably sick
| business entity.
| raincole wrote:
| At the end the book is published.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I do. Illegal activities can be dealt with by the legal
| system without needing to be publicized first.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| The legal system makes illegal activities part of the
| public record.
| prepend wrote:
| In the US, a contract can't supersede laws like those that
| protect whistleblowers. (I think this is part of how Harvey
| Weinstein was prosecuted because his NDAs were found invalid)
|
| The author didnt disclose any illegal activities in her book.
| And she didnt claim whistleblower status.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Not in the book directly, but she did accuse them of
| securities fraud prior to publication: https://www.theguard
| ian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/15/whistl...
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > The author didnt disclose any illegal activities in her
| book. And she didnt claim whistleblower status.
|
| Both statements are factually incorrect.
|
| > Wynn-William filed a whistleblower complaint with the
| Securities and Exchange Commission in April 2024 and with
| the Department of Justice in 2025, according to her filing.
|
| Also, here's a short but not comprehensive (read the book
| when it came out and I forget things) list of the sledged
| illegal activities described in the book:
|
| - Collusion with the chinese authorities
|
| - Securities fraud
|
| - Illegal foreign political contributions
|
| - Sexual harassment and workplace retaliation
|
| I don't know the reasons for why there has been no
| enforcement/further investigations aside from some
| congressional circus, especially when Zuck was caught lying
| to Congress. But I would be willing to bet that they
| involve money in politics.
| troyvit wrote:
| The article covers this:
|
| Instead, [the arbitration ruling] 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.
|
| So she followed the clause.
|
| Personally I don't care. If she can publish the ugly truth
| about Meta and snag a pile of their money in the process I say
| power to her.
| reenorap wrote:
| Can't she just return the money from the severance agreement
| and rescind the NDA?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| It's not that deep lil bro. Yes, she broke her non-
| disparagement, but the good outweighs the bad here.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| https://archive.is/DmiOw
| fwipsy wrote:
| How the hell did Zuck run Facebook for so long without learning
| about the Streisand effect?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Streisand effect has a bit of confirmation bias at play.
|
| For every case of "idiot billionaire tries to suppress story
| and fails" I suspect there are quite a few "billionaire
| successfully suppresses story" cases.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Because he simply doesn't have to. He is controlling comically
| evil ad machine which is always caught redhanded doing
| something deeply immoral and nothing ever happens for them
| apart fine from EU from time to time. He is not even trying to
| have some positive image. He doesn't have to.
| liendolucas wrote:
| The book is so good that once picked up you can't stop reading
| it. I've left Facebook many many many years ago and ever came
| back. The book just reinforced my aversion to any product that's
| out there that is designed to waste your time and manipulate your
| head. I sincerely hope that whoever ruled the gag on the author
| reverses the decision and at least reads the book and understands
| how nasty and evil Facebook is.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I too love to read books that reinforce my existing beliefs.
| Although I'm starting to think it's less educational than the
| opposite :)
| blitzar wrote:
| Across America, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.
| AugustoCAS wrote:
| This is common across all corporations. My go-to example is
| Unilever or Nestle pushing products that are 100% unhealthy.
|
| In Asia, it's not uncommon to see healthy drinks for children
| that are sugar+artificial flavouring with huge marketing
| campaigns targetting the parents . The corporation makes millions
| and then advertises how they donated $10k to an obesity charity.
| mil22 wrote:
| Yes. Even companies like Google have had plenty of scandals
| involving senior leadership. I've personally heard more than a
| few that are not public from people with direct knowledge. The
| difference is that some companies and executives are simply
| better at containing the fallout, suppressing what gets out, or
| cultivating such a polished public image that allegations seem
| implausible because they clash so sharply with the persona they
| project.
|
| If you're considering working for a billionaire, choose
| carefully whose fortune and influence you're helping expand.
| Caveat emptor applies to employees as well. Or even better,
| don't work for one at all.
| Fricken wrote:
| Careless indeed. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are complicit in the
| Rohingya genocide
|
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
| williamDafoe wrote:
| These non disparagement contracts are typical in silicon valley.
| Databricks offered me a tiny amount of money and expected me to
| sign when they fired me on a whim after my stock grant quadrupled
| in 9 months. There was no warning and no review, just fired. They
| fired my 2 managers within the year, too, probably because they
| were fools.
|
| I told them to fuck off. I should have continued with the
| lawsuit, probably.
|
| But in american courts its "heads i win tails you lose" with
| labor laws - according to my lawyer wins are in the low single
| digits for discrimination lawsuits.
| beloch wrote:
| "Haigh highlighted Wynn-Williams's case in the House of Commons
| during a debate about employment rights on Monday. She said Wynn-
| Williams's decision to speak out had plunged her into financial
| peril.
|
| "Despite previous public statements that Meta no longer uses NDAs
| [non-disclosure agreements] in cases of sexual harassment - which
| Sarah has repeatedly alleged - she is being pushed to financial
| ruin through the arbitration system in the UK, as Meta seeks to
| silence and punish her for speaking out," she said.
|
| "Meta has served a gagging order on Sarah and is attempting to
| fine her $50,000 for every breach of that order. She is on the
| verge of bankruptcy. I am sure that the whole house and the
| government will stand with Sarah as we pass this legislation to
| ensure that whistleblowers and those with the moral courage to
| speak out are always protected."
|
| It is understood that the $50,000 figure represents the damages
| Wynn-Williams has to pay for material breaches of the separation
| agreement she signed when she left Meta in 2017. Meta has
| emphasised that Wynn-Williams entered into the non-disparagement
| agreement voluntarily as part of her departure."
|
| ...
|
| "The ruling stated Wynn-Williams should stop promoting the book
| and, to the extent she could, stop further publication. It did
| not order any action by Pan Macmillan."
|
| Source:[1]
|
| ----------------------------------
|
| This would probably boil down to a "He said, she said" type of
| situation, albeit with one side being _aggressively_ litigious,
| were it not for Facebook 's long track record of casual and
| unthinking irresponsibility. e.g. Myanmar[2]. Second, the non-
| disparagement clause was apparently foisted upon Wynn-Williams
| when she was leaving the company, not when she was hired. That
| suggests Meta knew they'd treated her poorly and feared
| consequences. Finally, the book that resulted has come out at a
| time when multiple countries are starting to pass legislation to
| control the harm Facebook and other social media companies do
| (e.g. The social media ban for minors in Australia). Meta clearly
| does not want a book like "Careless People" trending right now.
|
| Meta has both a history of bad behaviour and a strong motive to
| silence such a book. For these reasons, I'm disinclined to
| believe Meta's claims that these allegations are "false and
| defamatory". Wynn-Williams probably was "toxic". She was an
| executive at Meta after all. Her claims can be true at the same
| time.
|
| ________________________
|
| [1]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-
| expo...
|
| [2]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-
| faceb...
| mil22 wrote:
| It's a great read. Here are some of the most salacious bits.
|
| ---
|
| She details the bizarrely intimate demands former COO Sheryl
| Sandberg placed on her young, female assistants - including
| demanding the author get into bed with her on a private jet:
|
| "Sheryl recently instructed Sadie to buy lingerie for both of
| them with no budget, and Sadie obeyed, spending over $10,000 on
| lingerie for Sheryl and $3,000 on herself. ... 'Happy to treat
| your breasts as they should be treated,' Sheryl responds. ...
| Sheryl responds by asking her twenty-six-year-old assistant to
| come to her house to try on the underwear and have dinner. Later
| the invite becomes one to stay over. Lean in and lie back."
|
| ---
|
| Facing open arrest warrants from the South Korean government over
| a regulatory dispute, Facebook's leadership team (including Mark
| Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg) realize it is too legally
| dangerous for them to travel there. So VP of Communications
| Elliot Schrage proposes a sociopathic solution:
|
| "It's breathtaking to me, how casually leadership speaks of
| employees being jailed. As if it's a fact of life like taxes...
|
| 'We need to get someone to test the appetite of the Korean
| authorities for arresting someone from headquarters. It can't be
| someone located there. They need to fly in before Mark and Sheryl
| do. You know, a body,' Elliot states matter-of-factly. The room
| falls silent. It's a weird thing to realize that the tech world,
| this most modern of industries, has cannon fodder."
|
| ---
|
| A woman suffers a severe medical emergency in the middle of the
| open-plan office while everyone just keeps typing:
|
| "She's foaming at the mouth and her face is bleeding. She must've
| hit something when she fell from her desk. And she's being
| completely ignored. She's surrounded by desks and people at
| computers and no one's helping her. Everyone types busily on
| their keyboards, pretending nothing is happening.
|
| 'Are you her manager?' I ask a woman at a nearby desk who seems
| to be studiously concentrating on her computer, while a woman
| convulses in pain at her feet. 'Yes. But I'm very busy,' she says
| brusquely. ... 'She's a contractor. I don't have that sort of
| information. Her contract's coming to an end soon. I suggest you
| call HR.'"
|
| ---
|
| She uncovers secret internal documents detailing Mark
| Zuckerberg's master plan to get Facebook into China:
|
| "But the thing that gets me is where Facebook's leadership states
| that one of the 'cons' of Facebook being the one who's
| accountable for content moderation is this: 'Facebook employees
| will be responsible for user data responses that could lead to
| death, torture and incarceration.'
|
| ... And yet, despite the fact that our employees would be
| responsible for death, torture, and incarceration... the
| consensus among Mark and the Facebook leaders was that this was
| what they'd prefer..."
| rorylawless wrote:
| A couple of podcasts in my rotation had Sarah Wynn-Williams on as
| a guest [1] [2], with the caveat that she was unable to talk
| about the book or comment on the Meta. Absurd.
|
| I need to give this a read soon.
|
| [1] https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/live-special%3A-who-
| rules-...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mz5f
| thisisrida wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20260222004907/https://www.theti...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Ms. Streisand. Paging Ms. Barbra Streisand. Please pick up the
| white courtesy phone.
|
| I am not sure which exec at meta thought that this would be a
| good idea.
|
| They are, literally, giving the book the best publicity it could
| have ever had. She's probably happy to not talk about it. There
| will be plenty of proxies that only have to read out of the book,
| prefacing it with "This is what Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want you
| to hear."
| dmschulman wrote:
| It's been interesting to watch some of Wynn-William's claims be
| vindicated by recent court decisions about the addictive and
| manipulative qualities of Meta and Google's products. She left
| the company in 2017, and along with her many other allegations
| about Facebook and their executive team, had a good amount of
| information in the book about the reasoning, rationale, and
| management decisions that led to allowing advertisers to hyper
| target "coveted" demographics of tweens and children (among other
| claims).
|
| Facebook, according to Wynn-Williams, sold advertisers on the
| fact that they could target young girls who post and then remove
| selfies from their services in order to market to demographics
| who were likely experiencing depression and negative feelings
| about their body image.
| bena wrote:
| She didn't leave, she was fired. A significant difference.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| If your first priority is judging the author then yes. If
| your first priority is judging the company, as it is with
| many people in this thread, then it is less so. In that case,
| it only suffices to ascertain the truth of the author's
| statements.
|
| To take a more extreme example, if a mob hitman turned FBI
| informant blows the lid on the corruption within the FBI, if
| there is truth in their statements, then them having
| benefitted from the corruption they are exposing is frankly
| secondary to my primary focus in the matter.
| paganel wrote:
| > girls who post and then remove selfies from their services in
| order to market to demographics who were likely experiencing
| depression and negative feelings about their body image.
|
| This is just pure evil, and I'm not using this as a metaphor,
| it is evil by definition. I wonder how do the people behind
| these decisions sleep at night? Don't they have kids of their
| own? How can they look at their kids' faces knowing that
| they've deliberately caused harm to some other kids?
| khalic wrote:
| Well I know what I'm reading tonight.
| bicepjai wrote:
| Streisand effect. I didn't care about the book but I will have
| listened to this book by this weekend.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| Are we shocked that a private entity, when given control of the
| public square, is using it's position to manipulate the discourse
| that goes in it's square? You think the quadspillion dollar
| megacorp is just going to let you criticize them?
|
| The naivety in tech is downright embarrassing sometimes. This
| isn't the 90s or even the 2010s, we should know the lay of the
| land by now
| smallerize wrote:
| No one said they were surprised. It's good to get
| documentation.
| newscracker wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The number of copies sold seems quite low for this book. It's
| difficult to believe that across paperback, hardcover, ebooks and
| audiobooks, it hasn't sold several million copies. This report is
| from February 2026 (just a month and a half ago).
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| How great it is to write an expose after already making millions
| there...
| CalChris wrote:
| Well, $50,000 is just not that much money. Sarah Wynn-Williams
| could open a Patreon account; scrape together $50,000; do an
| interview and cut Zuck a check.
| shevy-java wrote:
| There need to be new laws against megacorporations. They
| undermine too much in society when they can abuse individuals so
| easily. This is also a problem when the world wide web becomes a
| global walled garden - corporations decide who can say which (and
| gets exposure, or by censoring, no exposure). This is also why
| "age verification" is a censorship law (and, by the way, I
| recently saw on youtube two young girls create content, in a
| random video suggested; this was interesting in that age
| verification kind of censors away under-age people as content
| creators. The content itself was absolutely harmless, some random
| shit about what young people seem to be interested in. But I then
| wondered how the lobbyists can still try to sell "age
| verification" as "must-protect-kids" when at the same time
| underage people can create videos. This just confirms all
| suspiciouns that "age verification" has absolutely nothing to do
| with protecting children, but with spying and snifing after
| regular people.)
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I'll not that she is "banned" from saying negative things about
| Meta not by any law, but by a contract she willingly signed, and
| for which she likely received financial compensation (aka
| "severance"). I'd like to know the amount she was paid in
| severance (or really, was it above and beyond the standard
| severance policy at the time), in addition the amount of the
| fines she faces for disparagement that are reported here.
|
| That said, Meta seems to have a really stupid strategy here. They
| are only drawing more attention to this woman and her book, and
| making themselves looking really bad in the process. I'm not sure
| I believe her victim narrative, but Meta sure does look dumb and
| vindictive here.
| tyronehed wrote:
| This is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading. She was
| extremely fair to Facebook executives.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Wait you can legally ban someone from saying negative things? How
| does this work with the first amendment?
| delbronski wrote:
| Money. You can break any rule with money.
| thyrsus wrote:
| The first amendment protects from U.S. government censorship
| (with exceptions for national security and commission of
| otherwise illegal acts, such as child molestation, fraud, or
| yelling fire in a crowded theater). The suppression here is a
| civil matter in which the author signed a contract not to
| "disparage" and would suffer civil penalties (monetary, other
| negotiated constraints) for violating the contract.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others? (pretty sure there are others)
|
| _Meta expose author faces $50k fine per breach of non-
| disparagement agreement_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322050 - Sept 2025 (352
| comments)
|
| _An ex-Facebook exec said staff let Zuckerberg win at board
| games_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44757228 - Aug 2025
| (2 comments)
|
| _Careless People_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43780363 - April 2025 (537
| comments)
|
| _Lawmakers are skeptical of Zuckerberg 's commitment to free
| speech_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43643387 - April
| 2025 (63 comments)
|
| _How 'Careless People' is becoming a bigger problem for Meta_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43440449 - March 2025 (41
| comments)
|
| _Meta puts stop on promotion of tell-all book by former
| employee_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43387325 - March
| 2025 (88 comments)
|
| _Ex-Facebook director 's new book paints brutal image of Mark
| Zuckerberg_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43360024 -
| March 2025 (336 comments)
|
| _Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her
| book about Facebook_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43349473 - March 2025 (108
| comments)
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| She's not actually "banned", she just has to pay a penalty based
| on an agreement she voluntarily signed. Now I'm not saying that
| good on Meta's part but the title is misleading.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| I don't agree with this ban. I also don't understand how a non-
| judicial US arbitration applies to the UK or in Europe. It
| shouldn't.
|
| From the book authors perspective, signing the severance (and by
| definition taking the payout) means you're giving up the rights
| of disparagement and legal action against the company. This
| happens a lot of times. For example, if you have a legal
| employment complaints against your supervisors in a US company
| and have filed for external legal action, signing severance (if
| the company lays you off) means you give up your legal action and
| agree not to disparage company leaders.
|
| The solution here was to not sign the severance and write the
| book.
|
| Fwiw - I believe severance should be like non-competes. It cannot
| come with these clauses unless the value of the severance is over
| some set amount (e.g. above $10m).
|
| I think the publisher should just make the book freely
| downloadable and distribute it via torrents and any other means.
| Cider9986 wrote:
| 100%. I was just about to post about how DRM-free copies should
| be made available. The danger for most media is obscurity.
| Although that is clearly not a problem with this one, doing so
| would only increase the popularity of the book, which should be
| the author's goal.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You don't think private contracts should be enforceable in
| other countries? I don't that would make for a great world to
| live in.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| The contract should be subservient to the laws of the
| country/state. She may have signed it in the US. But if the
| non-disparagement is not legal in the UK it shouldn't be
| enforceable.
| prepend wrote:
| I dont think the severance value was disclosed. It could be
| $10M. She was a senior exec for years and hasnt had to work
| since leaving Facebook.
|
| I mean even for small amounts like $100k, I'd likely sign non
| disparagement agreements. Early in my career I signed
| agreements for really low amounts as it was greater than zero
| and I needed the money.
| ronsor wrote:
| > I don't agree with this ban. I also don't understand how a
| non-judicial US arbitration applies to the UK or in Europe. It
| shouldn't.
|
| You really need to familiarize yourself with the New York
| Convention.
| throwanem wrote:
| She evidently signed a nondisparagement agreement with teeth. She
| won't martyr herself if she gets sued over it and loses. If she
| didn't know what she was getting into, that's only because she
| was too foolish to wield her resources to the minimal extent of
| hiring a lawyer, for a look over the contract before she signed.
| Everyone wants a hero here. Don't be a child! This is real life,
| and if you ask me, _Careless People_ should be subtitled
| "Exhibit A in the trial of Federal Prisoner BOP #12345-098." Yet
| here we are.
|
| Wynn-Williams is no one's hero. Nor need she be. Nor should we
| require she be, in order to make use of the windfall of
| information she provided. But it's no surprise crime has no
| consequences, when even we - who have some professional
| responsibility to expertise in drawing the distinction between
| uses and abuses of technologies like Meta's - are so unreliable
| on the basic difference between epistemology and _People
| Magazine._ Upton Sinclair really did call it with that old line
| about understanding and salaries, huh?
| Fairburn wrote:
| Would be really cool if that book made its way to Youtube.
| Immortalize it.
| tim333 wrote:
| Seems fairly immortal already, the book. It's the author who's
| having problems.
| jedberg wrote:
| My friends who work at Meta said that they bought 100s of copies
| of the book and were passing it around to make sure everyone read
| it.
| mnmnmn wrote:
| Fuck Zuck forever and ever. What a pathetic chump.
| overrun11 wrote:
| This book is most likely a bunch of lies right? A Meta executive
| fired for poor performance decides to right a tell all and
| _surprise_ the people who fired her are all monsters. Why should
| I take this seriously?
|
| I guess rigor goes out the window when evidence fits your bias...
| gnarlouse wrote:
| This shark story the book opens with seems... implausibly
| Hollywood. But alright I guess.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Can he compliment and celebrate Meta? For the great and awesome
| harms they do? So efficient! So effective!
|
| And the Senate misdirection! Brazen and bold. Even when they saw
| right through him, Zuck's stone face hardly slipped!
| lokinorkle wrote:
| Why not, works here on this shit site too.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Yeah so if you need any info on people at Harvard just ask
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122
| ordu wrote:
| How do these agreements works? Lets suppose she writes a fiction
| book about a fictional country, and then gives interview about
| the elites of the country. But by some tragic coincidence the
| elites are evil just like Meta executives. Could Meta prove in a
| court, that its executives are exactly as evil as fictional
| elites and they are evil in exactly the same way, which means
| Sarah really talked about Meta so she should be fined? Or such
| reasoning will not work in a court?
| alex1138 wrote:
| I am incredibly saddened by Facebook because "social" should have
| exploded along with the rest of the web. The web is this vast
| place (which Facebook is trying to change
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198) and there's no
| reason they should have been the winners (Friendster was
| apparently slow, Myspace had that awkward problem of
| discoverability with people using screen names and also the fact
| pages could be probably too excessively customized). I can think
| of several ways in which FB has hurt me directly and hurts other
| people. But we gave up our power to "they 'trust me', dumb fucks"
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