First: the author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the former global public policy director of Facebook. The author is a coward and a person who tries to come off well through all of this; they don't come off well at all. From the start of this book:
I was one of the people advising the company’s top leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, as they were inventing how the company would deal with governments around the world. By the end, I watched hopelessly as they sucked up to authoritarian regimes like China’s and casually misled the public. I was on a private jet with Mark the day he finally understood that Facebook probably did put Donald Trump in the White House, and came to his own dark conclusions from that. But most days, working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of fourteen-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them.
There's a lot of horrible actions being recanted throughout the book, followed by sentences like 'I really don't want to do this' and 'I hate myself for being part of this'—both of which are copied verbatim from the book—followed by the author both being active in perpetrating 'this' and 'it' from her top-executive position. Naturally, this says much about the author, how Facebook work, and the contents of Careless People.
Second: Facebook have for a long time tried to stop the publication and promotion of the book[^1].
Third: it's good that this book is published. In spite of the fact that the author wanted to seem only a tad dirty by indirectly comparing her doubts and fears with the decisions made by the Facebook/Meta leadership, those leaders probably had their doubts, too. But they all collaborated to create what Facebook was and are. Even though it's blatantly obvious that the author is compartmentalising a lot of her actions I doubt that she's never considered what Hannah Arendt referred to as the banality of evil[^2]. Careless People reminds me of the memoir[^8] by Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp; in the introduction to the memoir, Primo Levi noted that Höss's lies and attempts to save his own skin were obvious in the extreme to anyone but Höss himself. In similar fashion, Wynn-Williams doesn't seem to see the forest because of all the trees that blocked her vision.
Facebook are not a generic social-media company. For example, there's the recent genocide in Myanmar; not only could Facebook have stopped the genocide before it happened but were instrumental in making it happen[^3]. Another example: Facebook consciously sold advertising space to 'jew haters'[^4]. They buy, collect, sell, and use your data against you in unprecedented ways that Shoshana Zuboff coined as 'surveillance capitalism'[^5].
Imagine the reaction of your employer if they found out you'd played a major part in orchestrating and committing genocide and consciously sold anti-semitic advertisements to people who (obviously) hate jews. You'd get sacked, which would be understandable. This does not happen to Meta companies.
I've worked in different IT-industry roles for over a quarter of a century. I've been part of many operations to safeguard sensitive data. Facebook took and still take a different approach to the use of data, as seen when Edward Snowden blew a whistle[^6] and when the Cambridge Analytica[^7] scandal came to light.
The most interesting things about Careless People are the interpersonal details: they show how people at Facebook worked, how they genuflected to Mark Zuckerberg (the CEO) and Sheryl Sandberg (the COO), how top management were smart and incompetent yet still made life-changing and life-threatening decisions for vast swathes of people at their own whims, often in the face of advice from intelligent people telling them not to do bad things.
At Facebook, workers are expected to be available around the clock. The author writes about her manager:
As her employee, I feel I have no choice but to adapt to her routine, working with crushing intensity and sleeping only for the few hours between 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M. that she’s asleep, to ensure I’m available to respond to her emails when she sends them. Sometimes I like to remind her—in the small hours of the morning—that she’d declared just a few months ago that she wasn’t sure there was enough work to make my job a job.
The author quickly spends more time with the big Facebook executives, like Sandberg:
Years later, after a few wines at Davos, Sheryl tells me that the punishing scale of work is by design. A choice Facebook’s leaders had made. That staffers should be given too much to do because it’s best if no one has spare time. That’s where the trouble and territoriality start. The fewer employees, the harder they work. The answer to work is more work.
When Facebook aren't offering anti-semites advertising space or perpetrate genocide, some of the human-to-human interactions remain the most memorable.
A few weeks after the review, Marne and I are at Facebook’s headquarters when Sheryl pulls me aside. “Marne told me about your childcare situation,” she says breezily. I’m mortified this is something that has been discussed with the COO. But I understand this is her way of caring. She’s trying to be nice. She’s saying this because she likes me. “Hire a nanny,” she instructs. “Be smart and hire a Filipina nanny.” She mistakes my look of horror for skepticism. “Sarah, I’m telling you, they’re English speaking, sunny disposition, and service orientated.” Marne echoes this sentiment. Both have at least one Filipina nanny in their retinue of staff. I call Tom and tell him about these conversations, telling him the COO of Facebook is now involved in our childcare. “This is appalling,” he says. “How can employers say such things?” “I guess this is the real Lean In. The stuff Sheryl really believes about work and womanhood but doesn’t put in the book.” I don’t want it to be an issue for my performance reviews in the future, so Tom and I follow their instructions.
Mark’s expecting his first child, and he tells us he might not be present for the birth. As the only person there who’s birthed a baby, I’m stunned. And genuinely curious.
“What would you be doing instead?” I asked him. Like, what in the world could possibly be more meaningful to him than the birth of his first child?
He had no idea. Just “something more important might come up.” He told us he’d discussed this with Priscilla and I was fascinated by her response. Apparently she told Mark that she would be totally fine with him skipping the delivery but that he might come to regret missing the birth of his first child.
This is one of my favourite paragraphs about the autocracy and kleptocracy that is Facebook:
When we gather the entire policy and communications organization together for an annual offsite meeting at headquarters in February 2015, Joel outlines what he sees as Mark’s new approach. When governments ask us to take down content that we believe should not come down, he says, it will only be taken down if one of two criteria is met: There is a credible threat to block Facebook. There is a risk to employees. The team peppers me with questions. How can they possibly tell if the government is going to shut down Facebook in their country? How can they escalate to Mark? What if we guess wrong about the risk and then they’re in jail and it’s too late? It’s five dozen people at this meeting, in a big conference room on Facebook’s campus—and the ones objecting the most are recent hires from South Korea, Brazil, and other places where governments have shown a willingness to arrest or use a show of force against employees: “How can Mark understand the politics in my country?” “How can he overrule it?” “How can we defy the government making legal requests and then ask to work with them?” “How can we say our rules are one thing but actually they are another?” These are the very people most at risk from this decision. It’s them, not Mark, who are most likely to be jailed if push comes to shove. Joel’s response? He’s frustrated and can’t understand their confusion, seething at what he sees as insolence and ignorance. The audacity of questioning authority. Basically, management issues the orders and employees outside the US are expected to comply. He lectures the team that Mark’s been clear on the two principles. Everything stays up unless Facebook is going to be blocked or someone is arrested and sitting in a jail cell with no way out. How many times does he have to say it? Everyone seems shocked that there’s no discussion or input—just an edict from Mark, enforced by Joel. They struggle to understand why Mark’s getting involved, why instead of the set of rules we tout to governments, decisions are made on his whim. What Joel and Mark are doing, whether they realize it or not, is sending an unfortunate message to governments around the world. If the only thing that will make Facebook change its position is jailing its employees or blocking its service, they’re effectively issuing an invitation to these governments to do just that. After this, we escalate all difficult decisions to Sheryl and Mark for them to decide. Although in reality it’s just Mark. Facebook is an autocracy of one.
There are many throwaway moments in the book, for example, when Zuckerberg suddenly, to the surprise of everyone at Facebook, says they'll provide free Wi-Fi to refugees around the world. This is announced to the United Nations. This is subsequently just dropped. While the company instead focus on important things.
On August 21, 2015, Mark assembles all the senior men working on what’s now called Free Basics and me in his conference room named the Aquarium. The guys are pretty tense and Mark addresses the group like a general addressing his troops—one who is displeased with their performance. Mark opens the meeting by talking admiringly about what he calls “street fighter tactics” that Uber is employing against politicians around the world and how successful they’ve been. I’d thought there was a general agreement that Facebook didn’t use these underhand tactics and we certainly didn’t admire them. Uber weaponizes their drivers and riders, creating strikes, protests, and transportation chaos, forcing authorities to the table. They’re sponsoring the soccer teams of the children of key Brazilian senators responsible for decisions that impact their business, insisting on having UBER plastered across their kids’ uniforms. They propose compiling opposition research on journalists. It’s dirty. But what becomes clear the more Mark speaks is that not only does he not judge what Uber is doing, he’s judging us for not doing it. Mark believes Facebook could have a lot more leverage with politicians than Uber ever could, and we’re failing him by not using these tactics. He launches into a spiel about Emperor Augustus, his favorite emperor, who led the transformation of Rome from a republic to an empire. He talks about “offense.” He wants to mobilize Facebook users. He wants pro-Facebook activists. He wants protests. Then he talks “defense.” He wants lists of adversaries, whether they’re companies, individuals, organizations, or governments. He wants to know how we can use the platform and tools we have to win against these adversaries. He doesn’t want us to constrain ourselves to our usual Internet.org tools. He wants us to leverage all of Facebook to find the right things to offer our enemies in order to pull them over to our side. He wants us to invent ways to use the platform and the algorithm to pressure them. He wants to establish a team within Facebook to figure out how to build the tools that will use the algorithm and platform to pressure adversaries, including politicians who oppose us, to bolster the policy team. I try to catch Joel’s eye to see if he’s also shocked by what he’s hearing. He won’t look at me. He looks chastened, not surprised. As if he’s heard all this before. “When you say ‘adversary,’ who do you mean?” I raise my hand and ask tentatively, a little concerned about what will happen to anyone on one of these lists. “Anyone who opposes us is an adversary,” Mark responds firmly. Not acknowledging that when it comes to Free Basics, that’s basically everyone. All I can think is how horrified politicians would be if they knew Facebook was harnessing the platform and its power to put the screws to their thumbs. He’s angered nearly every human rights group we work with, they’re now on the list of adversaries, and he’s about to torch all the trust we’ve spent years building with politicians and leaders around the world. And he doesn’t care. In fact, he’s doubling down and compiling an enemies list, going after anyone who raises reasonable concerns about Internet.org. After years at the company, I’d never seen him go on the offense like this, with such ferocity and hostility. There’s no idealism there at all, not about Facebook or Free Basics or anything. This isn’t the revolution I signed up for. This isn’t who I thought Mark would become, when I first tried to coax him into international politics. I don’t want to be part of any of that. But I’m pregnant and showing and it’s no time to start looking for a job. So I make a decision. Up till now, I’ve done everything I could to help Facebook grow. But now is a turning point. For the first time since I pitched this job to Facebook, I won’t exhaust everything I have to deliver what my bosses want. I won’t do all I can to develop creative strategies to advocate and convince governments and civil society that they’re wrong because I don’t think they are. Instead, I’ll focus my efforts on Facebook’s leadership, keep raising objections in meetings and emails at Facebook. I’ll execute Mark’s orders halfheartedly—focusing on the ones I agree with and not putting particular effort into the others. I’ll no longer try to do the impossible to make things happen for Facebook. When civil society groups and the Brazilian government point out problems with Free Basics, I won’t try to buy them off with “thoughtful partnerships.” I will keep bringing their issues—that there’s no encryption, no privacy policy, and no moderation of content on Free Basics—to the teams responsible for them at Facebook, knowing they probably won’t fix them. And they don’t.
Before the year 2024, Zuckerberg's hairstyle was explained by his love for emperor Agustus[^9]. Today Zuckerberg sports curly hair and says corporate culture has become too 'feminine' and suppresses 'masculine energy', which leads to a 'neutered' workplace[^10]. That news might explain why he's been a complete dick since creating Facebook as a way for guys to anonymously rate girls. Imagine what would happen if Zuckerberg would instead use his extreme wealth and power to do good instead of being sexist and kill swathes of people while building artificial intelligence products that contribute to the climate catastrophe. Or perhaps care about what his senior executive staff do thousands of meters up in the air.
Once we’re airborne on the flight back from Davos, Sadie and I start to churn through meeting notes, thank-yous, follow-ups, and a first draft of the “lessons from Davos” email Sheryl will circulate to leadership. There’s a separate room with a large bed in it, next to the main cabin, which is very much Sheryl’s domain. Sheryl emerges from this room and announces that she’s going to sleep and that we should all sleep now so we adjust to the California time zone. Sadie and I exchange a look because we both know that even if we work hard for the twelve hours it’ll take to get back to California, it’ll be tough to complete all the work we have to do before we land, and Tom and Sasha are not going to be happy if I arrive back from this trip and then try to work throughout the weekend. We politely decline. Sheryl seems miffed that we’re not taking her advice but returns to her room, and we return to our work. We’re an hour out of Zurich when Sheryl emerges back into the cabin in her pajamas. “What are you doing? I’m going to bed.” As if it isn’t obvious that we’re preparing all the emails that’ll go out under her name. “Lots to do,” I say cheerily. “But it’s better if you rest now so you can get back on California time,” she insists. “I’m okay,” I respond. There is only one bed in the jet and Sheryl is obviously using it. “Sarah, come to bed.” Her tone hardens. I look around at the others to check if they heard what I did. I shake my head and she repeats her instruction. “Sarah, come to bed.” We’re at a stalemate. I look around desperately for support from the others but everyone’s looking away. On the long drive from Davos to Zurich for the flight, Sheryl and Sadie had taken turns sleeping in each other’s laps, occasionally stroking each other’s hair, while I tried to make myself as small and invisible as possible, feeling uncomfortable with what I was seeing. I hoped my enormous bump made it clear that my lap was not available for my coworker or boss. Regardless of motivation, it was not a position I felt I (or anyone else working with Sheryl) should be put in. I make pleading eyes at Sadie hoping she might be up for another close moment with Sheryl. Sadie shakes her head. Sheryl sees this silent exchange and snaps, “Sadie’s slept over lots of times and I’m not asking Sadie. I’m asking you.” I don’t want to do this for all the obvious reasons—it wouldn’t be right for a male COO to ask for this and it’s not right for a female one to—but one thing that popped into my head, I’ll confess, is that I’m scared of something that happened on a flight a few weeks before this, from Tokyo to San Francisco. So exhausted by work and pregnancy, I fell asleep before the flight even took off, and woke up with a start. Everything around me was white. I couldn’t get my eyes to focus and I couldn’t see a thing. Just white. It reminded me of what I saw during my father’s leisurely drive to the doctor after the shark attack when I really thought I wasn’t going to make it. I go into a complete panic. Maybe I’d pushed myself to my limit and had a medical emergency, maybe it was a pregnancy side effect, or maybe I was having a breakdown. Maybe I shouldn’t be flying so heavily pregnant. I tear at whatever my white confines are and as they fall and the interior of the aircraft reappears, a flight attendant rushes over. In the most exquisitely polite terms, she explains that I had been snoring so loudly that I was disturbing other passengers, and the enterprising Japanese crew had erected a small white tent around me to try to muffle the sound. I was mortified. I tried to explain to her that I never normally snore, it’s only because I’m so uncomfortably pregnant. As Sheryl is insisting that I get into the bed with her, I’m worried about many things, including that I’m so exhausted after working around the clock for Davos that there’s a reasonable chance I would horrify Sheryl by falling asleep and snoring at antisocial levels. I look at Sadie for guidance. Her face is completely blank, as if she has vacated her body. I’m on my own here. No; it is simply impossible for me to get into bed with Sheryl. I’m resolute. I tell her no, I can’t. But people say no to Sheryl so rarely, she doesn’t know what to do with this. She retreats to her bed, making no effort to hide her frustration and resentment. I know something has broken between us. I know consequences will follow, but I don’t know what they’ll be. Sadie tries to console me, she tells me things will be fine, but there are unspoken rules with Sheryl about obedience and closeness. Those closest to Sheryl are rewarded. Marne and Sadie often appear in her unwanted designer clothes; both assumed plum seats on boards that Sheryl had been asked to serve on. There are courtside basketball tickets and introductions to celebrities. Sheryl lends them the keys to her vacation homes. Sadie is very conscious of the benefits of being Sheryl’s “little doll,” as she calls it and having Sheryl tell her she loves her. She’s the one who explained to me the benefits of “being on the pedestal.” She’s acutely aware of others she shares that with. But she’s also very aware of the expectations that come with it. How carefully calibrated the rewards and demands are. 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. When Sadie tries another of the bras Sheryl purchased her for the first time, she emails her. “This bra is INCREDIBLY beautiful and fits perfectly. So grateful. This is my breasts equivalent of flying privately for the first time.” “Happy to treat your breasts as they should be treated,” Sheryl responds. Sadie confides she’s never spent this much on single items of underwear in her life, messaging Sheryl that the experience is “a total Pretty Woman moment (the good one not the one where they kick her out). I feel like the fanciest twenty-six-year-old in the world.” 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. At times Sadie shares with me how stressed out she is about her relationship with Sheryl. I urge her to find a new job somewhere else, where her life would be less enmeshed with Sheryl’s. She says she’s shared her concerns with Elliot and another senior manager, and they’ve also counseled her to escape from Sheryl.
There are many pesky problems mentioned in Careless People, for example, in the Phillipines.
The day before the offsite started, the Filipina journalist Maria Ressa published a groundbreaking series. It outlined how the new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, had weaponized Facebook to propel himself into power. He was an outsider candidate running against insiders, but using paid ads and a network of social media volunteers, his campaign chipped away at facts, with political pages masquerading as credible sources of information to pump out half-truths. Combined with the power of bots, fake accounts, and trolls on social media, they fabricated an alternative reality that manipulated people by sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The campaign harnessed Facebook’s algorithm, which optimizes for eyeballs and doesn’t distinguish between fact and fiction.
To be honest, when company executives and company-board members behave without morals nor ethics, the results are predictable.
We’re a company that’s been accused of “digital colonialism,” and recently board member Marc Andreessen fired off a series of tweets suggesting that India was better off under British colonial rule.
It's interesting to see mention of Zuckerberg running for president, especially in context to things like this.
The plane is descending. Time’s running out. Here we are. Mark’s looking at me expectantly. What do I think, he’s asked me. I look him in the eyes, panic, and say, “Rosebud.” Mark gives me a blank look. “What are you talking about?” “You know, Rooooosseeeebuuud.” Mark looks baffled. Oh god. This was a very bad idea. “Citizen Kane?” Nothing from Mark. “Citizen Kane. You know, the movie,” Elliot says. He’s sitting across from Mark. We’re in a pod of four facing chairs. Strapped in for landing. Still Mark doesn’t get it. “Hearst,” I say, by way of explanation. Mark cocks his head and looks at me quizzically. Elliot clearly can’t believe I’ve gone down this road, but tries to help me out. “I think what she’s saying is that if you do this and you control the publishers and you run for office, that makes you a modern-day William Randolph Hearst,” he explains. “You know, with the publishing and the politics and the…” “Oh,” Mark says softly. “Is that a bad thing?”
Nowadays, Facebook have fired their own content moderators and a lot of third-party moderators to instead rely on user reports. Zuckerberg has poured 'tens of billions of dollars' into creating 'the metaverse' and genuflects to Donald Trump, just as the other owners of surveillance-capitalist platforms[^11].
The users? They provide the oil that burns the lamp of Meta, the company name behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al; strangely, the users are not only the metaphorical oil but the ones who ultimately get scorched en masse, along with Earth and its resources, including everyone who work for the different Meta companies. All of this in the name of fuelling the pockets of a person who doesn't care about you unless you can generate more money for him.
[^1]: Razzall, Katie, and Sarah Bell. “Meta Stops Former Facebook Director from Promoting Critical Memoir.” British Broadcasting Corporation. Last modified March 13, 2025. Accessed March 21, 2025.https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5zyq0250wo.
[^2]: Dresser, Sam. “What Did Hannah Arendt Really Mean by the Banality of Evil?” Aeon. Last modified April 23, 2018. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil.
[^3]: Zaleznik, Daniel. “Facebook and Genocide: How Facebook Contributed to Genocide in Myanmar and Why It Will Not Be Held Accountable.” Harvard Law School | Systemic Justice Project. Last modified November 11, 2021. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-how-facebook-contributed-to-genocide-in-myanmar-and-why-it-will-not-be-held-accountable/.
[^4]: Tobin, Julia Angwin, Madeleine Varner,Ariana. “Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters.’” ProPublica. Last modified September 14, 2017. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters.
[^5]: Zuboff, Shoshana. “You Are the Object of a Secret Extraction Operation.” The New York Times, November 12, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/facebook-privacy.html.
[^6]: “Edward Snowden: surveillance disclosures.” Wikipedia, March 17, 2025. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Surveillance_disclosures.
[^7]: “Cambridge Analytica.” Wikipedia, March 17, 2025. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cambridge_Analytica&oldid=1281039893.
[^8]: Höss, Rudolf. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.
[^9]: Meisenzahl, Mary. “Mark Zuckerberg’s Fascination with Augustus Caesar Might Explain the Facebook CEO’s Haircut, Which His Wife Priscilla Chan Is Cutting during Quarantine.” Business Insider. Last modified May 16, 2020. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-haircut-explained-augustus-caesar-2019-10.
[^10]: Stanaland, Adam. “Mark Zuckerberg Thinks Workplaces Need to ‘Man up’ − Here’s Why That’s Bad for All Employees, No Matter Their Gender.” The Conversation. Last modified January 23, 2025. Accessed March 21, 2025. http://theconversation.com/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-workplaces-need-to-man-up-heres-why-thats-bad-for-all-employees-no-matter-their-gender-247539.
[^11]: Helmore, Edward. “Trump Inauguration: Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk Seated in Front of Cabinet Picks.” The Guardian, January 20, 2025, sec. US news. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/20/trump-inauguration-tech-executives.
