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Mark Zuckerberg has sought to block the distribution of a former executive’s memoir that details allegations of sexual harassment and claims the business cosied up to the Chinese government.
Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, secured an emergency arbitration ruling on Wednesday in an attempt to block Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting or distributing Careless People, a tell-all book about her six years at the company.
Ms Wynn-Williams, who worked for Mr Zuckerberg’s business from 2011 to 2017 and became the company’s director of global public policy, alleges sexual harassment by Joel Kaplan, who recently replaced Sir Nick Clegg as Meta’s chief lobbyist.
She claimed Mr Kaplan had told her she looked “sultry” and pressed up against her at a company event, as well as making inappropriate comments while she was discussing surgery she needed after giving birth.
She also claims that the company agreed to censor content on behalf of the Chinese government as part of a “hand in glove” effort to break into the country.
Meta has said the book contains “false accusations” and says Ms Wynn-Williams was sacked in 2017 for poor performance. It said an investigation into her harassment claims had cleared Mr Kaplan and found that Ms Wynn-Williams made “misleading and unfounded” allegations. She claimed she was sacked in retaliation for blowing the whistle.
Non disparagement clause
The arbitrator ordered Ms Wynn-Williams not to make any “disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental comments to any person or entity concerning [Meta] its officers, directors or employees”.
It also said she should stop promoting, publishing or distributing Careless People, and retract previous disparaging comments.
The arbitration decision relates to the terms of the contract between Meta and Ms Wynn-Williams, which included a non-disparagement clause.
It is unclear what impact the ruling will have. US employment regulators have questioned the validity of non-disparagement clauses, particularly with relation to allegations regarding sexual harassment. Careless People is published by Flatiron Books, a subsidiary of publishing giant Macmillan, rather than Ms Wynn-Williams herself. The book remained available for sale on Amazon in the US and UK on Thursday, and Macmillan did not respond to a request for comment.
Meta said: “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’s false and defamatory book should never have been published. This urgent legal action was made necessary by [Ms] 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.”