Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams’s account of her time at Facebook, has landed top of the New York Times’s bestseller charts and fourth in the UK’s Sunday Times equivalent. It owes its success in large part to a ferocious campaign that Meta – Facebook’s parent company – waged against it on publication.
When Meta faces a barrage of public criticism, which it often does, it typically stays quiet and gets on with things. And that approach works – its share price has continued to soar despite scandal after scandal. So when the company not only published a series of furious denials but also had staffers post about the book on their personal social media feeds, and even launched a legal action to prevent Wynn-Williams promoting it, people started to take notice. What bombshells must it contain to have animated Facebook so?
Meta is presently engaged in a legal fight for its very survival. Mark Zuckerberg and the public affairs team of which Wynn-Williams was once a member are frenetically lobbying Donald Trump to settle an imminent antitrust case over its purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram. But Careless People can’t trouble Meta on that front. Despite covering the period of both purchases, neither gets more than the briefest look-in.
The author has a background in the diplomatic service in New Zealand. One of her earliest stories comes something close to outright body horror. A detailed description of a shark attack she suffered in childhood is immediately surpassed by a terrifying account of the subsequent medical procedure. A later report of the near-death experience which followed the birth of her second child is equally evocative.
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