Sarah Wynn Williams has hit the headlines after her book ‘Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism’ exposed the people in power of Meta, then Facebook. Williams too was a director of the company where she worked for six years before quitting in 2017.
Williams accused former Facebook COO Sheryl Sanberg of approaching her female assistant improperly during a trip. Williams wrote that during a trip to Europe, Sandberg spent $13m000 on lingerie for herself and her young female assistant whom she invited to the bed on a private jet flight. Williams said she was also offered to join Sandberg in the only bed that the jet had and Sandberg was rankled when her offer was rejected.
Williams said under Zuckerberg and Sandberg, Facebook’s culture turned rotten with shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards as the two top executives turned a blind eye to what was happening in the company.
Williams alleged that Zuckerberg worked ‘hand in glove’ with Beijing and considered sharing user data with China.
Who is Sarah Wynn-Williams?
A former New Zealand diplomat, Sarah Wynn-Williams was a Facebook director who accused her boss Joel Kaplan of sexually harassing her. Kaplan was then the vice president of Facebook for global public policy. Williams was fired from her post as director in 2017 following her complaint against her boss, which she believes was retaliation for making the complaint. Meta, however, maintained that Willians was fired for “poor performance” and “toxic behavior” and the investigation against Kaplan was found “misleading”.
Williams has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors.
What did Meta say about the new allegations?
Meta said the allegations in Williams’ books are a mix of “out-of-date and previously reported claims” about the company. The company said since Williams was fired in 2017, she has been paid by anti-Facebook activists to continue complaining against Facebook.
On the China allegations, Meta said it was no secret that Facebook was once interested in operating services in China but ultimately opted not to do it.
