What that Facebook Whistleblower's Memoir Left Out (restofworld.org)
- Reference: 0176865697
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/30/170233/what-that-facebook-whistleblowers-memoir-left-out
- Source link: https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/
But Wednesday RestofWorld.org published [1]additional thoughts from Meta's former head of public policy for Bangladesh (who is now an executive director at the nonprofit policy lab Tech Global Institute). Though their time at Facebook didn't overlap, they first applaud how the book "puts a face to the horrific events and dangerous decisions."
But having said that, "What struck me is that what isn't included in Careless People is more telling than what is."
> By 2012 — one year after joining Facebook — Wynn-Williams had ample evidence of the platform's role in [2]enabling violence and [3]harm upon its users, and state-sanctioned digital repression, yet her memoir neither mentions these events nor the repeated warnings to her team [4]from civil society groups in Asia before the situation escalated... In recounting events, the author glosses over her own indifference to repeated warnings from policymakers, civil society, and internal teams outside the U.S. that ultimately led to serious harm to communities.
>
> She briefly mentions how Facebook's local staff was held at gunpoint to give access to data or remove content in various countries — something that had been happening since as early as 2012. Yet, she failed to grasp the gravity of these risks until the possibility of her facing jail time arises in South Korea — or even more starkly in March 2016, when Facebook's vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, was [5]arrested in Brazil. Her delayed reckoning underscores how Facebook's leadership remains largely detached from real-world consequences of their decisions until they become impossible to ignore.
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> Perhaps because everyone wants to be a hero of their own story, Wynn-Williams frames her opposition to leadership decisions as isolated; in reality, powerful resistance had long existed within what Wynn-Williams describes as Facebook's "lower-level employees."
Yet "Despite telling an incomplete story, Careless People is a book that took enormous courage to write," the article concludes, calling it an important story to tell.
"It goes to show that we need many stories — especially from those who still can't be heard — if we are to meaningfully piece together the complex puzzle of one of the world's most powerful technology companies."
[1] https://restofworld.org/2025/careless-people-book-review-facebook-global-policy/
[2] https://www.myanmarinternet.info/rohingya-crisis
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2012/10/17/how-facebook-posts-sparked-bangladeshi-anger
[4] https://thediplomat.com/2012/08/indias-internet-freedom-nightmare/
[5] https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/facebook-exec-jailed-in-brazil-as-court-seeks-whatsapp-data-idUSKCN0W34WA/
Diversity is Key (Score:5, Interesting)
> little pissant countries that don't respect freedom of speech are bossing around Facebook. If Facebook only had operations in the USA
Have you looked at your current government recently? You know the one cancelling visas for students who took part in protests or that is shutting down university departments it does not like. The US may not be a small country but its current government is incredibly small minded.
While I would agree that historically the US has been a reasonably consistent champion of free speech, it's clearly not at the moment and that's the problem with relying on one country's government. The standard warning for investments is that past performance is not indicative of future results and the solution is to diversify. So having a communication platform regulated by local governments ensures that you avoid the risk of losing that freedom should the political winds in one country shift suddenly.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree with the tone of your message.
However- from a legal perspective, canceling a visa (or outright rejecting one) for people who you don't like isn't extralegal, or extrajudicial.
Congress has, in that case, passed no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Ultimately, what that comes down to, is you don't really have freedom of speech if you're visiting.
Sure, you still have freedom from being locked up here for it- but you can be kicked the fuck out.
I'm not going to weigh in on whether or n
Only somewhat interesting (Score:2)
I mean, that Facebook is a despicable organization is hardly news.
They are all dispicable. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just human nature. A big business includes a whole lot of people, and the highest positions are most attractive to toxic self-promoters, so they are always present and climbing the ranks. And even for leaders who are not intrinsically toxic, the position of power they hold has a natural impact on their mind, making them see those beneath themselves as little more than pack animals.
Of course, big businesses also have good people working in them and also produce products and services that we want. So they are a natural mix of good and evil and all kinds of other things in between.
But, fundamentally, we can count on all big businesses being as evil as they think they can be. What they expect they can get away with is exactly what they attempt. Any thought that the good-person elements at work in the business will stop top leadership from doing ghastly things (if they expect they can get away with it) is just naive. Law enforcement and regulation needs to apply to them with eternal vigilance.
Careless? (Score:3)
Careless? I'd say Meta's managers care less, only want to hit their targets to get their performance bonuses, stock grants, and profit sharing from the big Zucker. How many bodies they have to step over or run over doesn't matter until they are the corporate scapecoat, when Meta champion's "ethics" and "free speech."
"He's in for the buck. He don't take prisoners." from the movie "Wall Street" ...
JoshK.
Re: (Score:2)
> Careless? I'd say Meta's managers care less, only want to hit their targets to get their performance bonuses, stock grants, and profit sharing from the big Zucker.
I'd say the root problem is that there's too many public companies as a whole, with their "real" customers being their investors and shareholders, with "users/consumers" of their product/service being just another tool by which these public companies create value for their real customers.
This creates a perverse incentive (encouraged by the demands of their fiduciary duty) to do whatever's needed to create that short-term value, regardless of the long-term consequences.
Re: (Score:2)
Fiduciary duty does not require favoring the short-term over the long-term. This is a myth.
Those that tend to do so are often themselves favoring their short-term.
The perverse incentive is in the ownership of a company they can sell to any random person on the open exchange, who doesn't know the details, and insider trading being very hard to pin down.
Most cases of insider trading are settled out of court with the SEC since prosecution is so difficult.
If you knew the truth (Score:4, Informative)
If you knew the truth you would never use a meta product ever again in your life.
Re:If you knew the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
I never have, and never will. It was clearly obvious even back in the early days of FB that it was to be the most significant cancer ever contracted by society as a whole.
"Meta[stasize]" (Score:3)
> It was clearly obvious even back in the early days of FB that it was to be the most significant cancer ever contracted by society as a whole.
Hence the reason I call it "Meta[stasize]".
Re: "Meta[stasize]" (Score:3)
In all fairness, should not the blame be laid at the feet of Al Gore for inventing the Internet?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm fairly certain that was meant to be funny. Everyone knows it was Bill Clinton that came up with the idea and Gore stole his thunder.
Re: "Meta[stasize]" (Score:2)
I can not be mad at being called a fucking MAGA, I am just happy they got the reference.
Re: (Score:2)
.. Says a man who has a conscience and cares .. presumably you don't use FB for the right reasons .. but .. if everyone who understands and cares walked away from FB, you'd still probably have 95% of the user base intact.
No. Sadly, people who don't know, don't want to know, or don't care, are the vast majority.
I wouldn't want to walk away from my currently lucrative influencer account... said every influencer on every platform.
Re: (Score:2)
What truth is that? That people don't have agency, and are basically mind controlled by advertisers and government spooks?