'Come to bed': Mark Zuckerberg's Meta tries to silence former employee, obtains court order barring THIS tell-all memoir
Trending | SCIENCE & TECH | World | Meta has secured a court order to prevent a former employee from promoting a memoir alleging sexual harassment within the company.
Facebook's parent company Meta is seeking to silence one of its former employees who has made scandalous allegations, including that of sexual harassment, in a tell-all book. The tech giant has obtained a temporary ban to stop her from promoting her memoir titled "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism" or bad-mouthing Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.
What's in the memoir
Sarah Wynn-Williams, who, as per Meta communications director Andy Stone, was fired for "poor performance and toxic behaviour," in her tell-all memoir has alleged multiple instances of sexual harassment.
Wynn-Williams, who worked at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017, has made claims of sexual harassment against longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a US President Donald Trump ally and a prominent Republican.
She has also alleged that Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg once instructed her 26-year-old-assistant and Wynn-William to "come to bed" during a 12-hour flight on a private jet.
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Wynn-William further accuses Joel Kaplan, an ex-boyfriend of Sandberg's, who served as Facebook's vice president of US policy and eventually became vice president of global policy, of grinding up against her during a work event. She also claims that when she delivered her second child, a complicated birth that left her bleeding and nearly killed her, Kaplan insisted on weekly videoconferences during her maternity leave. Sarah claims that when she told Kaplan she needed another surgery as she was still bleeding, the Meta executive repeatedly pressed her to tell him "where are you bleeding from?".
The former Meta employee also claims that Facebook sought to appease the hardline Chinese government censors, all to enter the lucrative China market.
"The suggestion was that as part of the negotiations for the company to enter into China, the data of users in Hong Kong could be put in play," she claimed in an interview with NPR.
Meta's attempts to silence Sarah Wynn-Williams
The tech giant, as per AFP, has contended that Sarah's memoir violates a non-disparagement contract signed by her when she worked with the company's global affairs team.
Meta's request has been granted by an arbitration court, and Sarah Wynn-Williams is now barred from promoting the book or making derogatory statements about the company. She will also have to retract previous critical comments she has made about the company or its executives.
The order, however, does nothing to stop Macmillan Publishers from distributing copies of the memoir.
Touting the court's ruling, Meta communications director Andy Stone said in a post on X,"This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams' false and defamatory book should never have been published."
"It's no secret we were interested in China; we explore lots of ideas," Stone said, adding, "You know what didn't happen? We didn't start offering our services in China."
(With inputs from agencies)
