It looks like Meta’s campaign to bury a dishy, tell-all memoir from a former employee isn’t exactly working. In fact, it seems that the company’s legal maneuvers to block the book have had the exact opposite intended effect.
Careless People has debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s also spent much of the week in the number three position on Amazon’s bestseller list. That’s despite the fact that Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former policy director at Facebook, has been barred from promoting or publicly discussing the book following legal action by Meta.
The memoir details much of the inner workings of Facebook during the nearly seven years Wynn-Williams worked there. It reveals new details about the company’s relentless ambition to bring the social network to China, as well as numerous shocking stories about how Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other executives behaved behind closed doors. (In addition to her revelations in Careless People, Wynn-Williams has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Committee. That complaint has not been made public, but according to NBC News, she alleges that Facebook “misled” investors.)
Meta has come out forcefully against Wynn-Williams and the book, describing it in a statement as “a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.” The company says Wynn-Williams was fired in 2017 “for poor performance and toxic behavior.”
Meta initiated arbitration proceedings against Wynn-Williams last week, resulting in a decision that for now prevents her from publicly discussing or promoting the work. But, as the bestseller lists show, the move has done little to kill interest in the work.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/careless-people-hits-the-top-of-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list-235008451.html?src=rss
