Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her book about Facebook

Meta has notched an early victory in its attempt to halt a surprise tell-all memoir from a former policy executive turned whistleblower. An arbitrator has sided with the social media company, saying that the book’s author should stop selling and publicizing the book, which went on sale earlier this week.

The drama stems from Careless People, a new book by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former policy official at Facebook who Meta says was fired in 2017. Described by its publisher as an “explosive insider account,” Wynn-Williams reveals some new details about Mark Zuckerberg’s push to bring Facebook to China a decade ago. She also alleges that Meta's current policy chief, Joel Kaplan, acted inappropriately, and reveals embarrassing details about Zuckerberg’s awkward encounters with world leaders.

The book was only announced last week, and Meta has waged a forceful PR campaign against it, calling it a “new book of old news.” Numerous former employees have publicly disputed Wynn-Williams’ account of events that transpired while she worked at Facebook.

Meta also filed an emergency motion with an arbitrator in an attempt to block the book, arguing that Wynn-Williams violated a non-disparagement agreement with the company. In a decision, the arbitrator said that she should immediately stop making disparaging comments about Meta and stop “further publishing or distributing” the book. It’s unclear what exactly this means for the memoir, which is already on sale. In a statement, the publisher Flatiron Books, which was also named in Meta’s complaint, said that "the arbitration order has no impact on Macmillan," which owns Flatiron.

Meta claimed the decision as a victory. “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years.”

In a statement, Flatiron Books said it was "appalled" by Meta's actions and had no plans to stop promoting the book. "We are appalled by Meta's tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement," a spokesperson said. "To be clear, the arbitrator's order makes no reference to the claims within Careless People. The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this. We will absolutely continue to support and promote it."

Update March 13, 2025, 8:55 AM PT: This story has been updated to add a statement from Flatiron Books.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-trying-to-stop-a-former-employee-from-promoting-her-book-about-facebook-004938899.html?src=rss