streisand effect

‘Careless People’ Author Can’t Promote Her Memoir About Facebook, But It’s Now a Bestseller

Meta won a ruling blocking Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting her book, which likely helped it shoot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list

By Jonathan Zavaleta

Jonathan Zavaleta

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March 24, 2025

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Careless People book

Flatiron

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Sarah Wynn-Williams’s insider account of her time at Facebook arrived nearly under cover of darkness, with no promotion from the author or publisher until a week before its publication on March 11. Shortly after its publication, Facebook successfully won an emergency ruling from an arbitrator to block Wynn-Williams, the former director of global public policy at Facebook, from promoting the memoir.

Meta’s efforts to block the book likely helped its sales, and it’s now the number one bestseller on the New York Times list, as well as a bestseller from retailers like Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

'Careless People': Memoir About Facebook Is Now a Bestseller

NEW RELEASE

Careless People

order at bookshop.org

Order at barnes&noble

The book is available from retailers like Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Barnes & Noble.

Before the injunction, Meta responded to the book’s publication, releasing a statement that read in part, “This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.”

The book has become a bestseller in the US and the UK, and publisher Pan Macmillan released a statement to the Guardian last week that read, “This early success is a triumph against Meta’s attempt to stop the publication of this book.”

While books are typically announced months in advance, publisher Flatiron kept Careless People under tight wraps, announcing the book less than a week before its publication date. The URL of the Amazon listing of the book, for example, was simply “Untitled-Flatiron-Author-Revealed-March.”

The book has plenty of shocking, WTF moments both big and small, from Wynn-Williams accusing Facebook of not taking atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar stoked by hate speech on the platform seriously, to anecdotes calling Mark Zuckerberg a sore loser at popular strategy board game Settlers of Catan.

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Shortly after the book’s release, Meta responded to the book’s allegations in a statement, which read in part, “This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” adding “Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment,” and claiming she was “paid by anti-Facebook activists and this is simply a continuation of that work.”

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