i’ve been primarily focused on minimising my tbr lately, but when meta (the company) launches an all-out legal offensive against a memoir written by a former employee about her time at the company, i’m all ears — and well… eyes.
after reading ‘careless people’ by sarah wynn-williams, i understand meta’s reaction. to say it’s unflattering is the understatement of the decade. even though the tone is light, almost conversational, often self-deprecating and at times simply funny, it’s also deeply deceiving. because the content isn’t light, and the events wynn-williams describes aren’t either.
now, a huge chunk of what she shares doesn’t come as a massive surprise. i’d classify it as the known unknowns. privacy issues, accountability issues, meddling in world politics — the list goes on.
we all knew it was bad, and we’ve all known for a long time. we just didn’t know how bad. and definitely not in this much detail. or at least i didn’t.
add to this a toxic work culture in an already morally ambiguous environment, and you get a decent idea of the day-to-day reality of the business.
i was a bit more surprised by the female leadership at the company and certain behaviour that — had it come from a man — would certainly qualify as sexual harassment. but i’ll leave those juicy details for your own reading pleasure. just know they involve lingerie worth thousands of dollars and beds in private planes.
in hindsight, i believe the power of ‘careless people’ lies in its ‘light’ tone. it reminds me of the following quote from the art of war:
all warfare is deception
because the tone allows wynn-williams to lay out what she has to say without veering into the overly emotional or dramatic (hello, stereotypes associated with female narratives), to neatly package all of her damning evidence without coming off as aggressive (yet more stereotypes), and still write a memoir that’s genuinely ‘fun’ to read.
the tone allows her to be read despite the uphill battle of selling a book without access to the usual publicity tools (with meta’s platforms out of the picture). and therefore, to be heard.
so the tone had to be right. and it is.
now that everyone is saying the other party is lying, who am i to decide who’s right and who’s wrong? (the answer is no one.)
i’m sure this memoir — like most of social media — is a careful curation of wynn-williams’ subjective experience that sets her in the best possible light. and that’s fair — it’s her memoir, after all.
however, this is just one piece of the overall narrative of the power of social media networks. the dark side that accompanies the benefits. it’s food for thought — but not in the inspirational way.
it’s strengthened my resolve to look into other networks, ones closer to my own values.
this story is far from over, even if the next chapters will be written by people other than wynn-williams.
and now, to the one question i’ve been asking myself time and time again since finishing the book: how will the post with this review perform on instagram compared to bluesky or mastodon for instance?
i’m intrigued. still and again.
