Review: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Well, shucks. This was a ride, and not in a good way.
I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but Careless People was getting a lot of hype and some others I really respect had been talking about it so I used an audible credit. And then I haven’t been able to stop listening for the last two days.
If you’ve not heard about the book and its controversy, Sarah Wynn-Williams worked for years for Facebook, since the really early pseudo-startup days. Latterly she was very high up in the company, chumming Mark Zuckerberg around the world on his private jet, setting up then priming him for meetings with world leaders and (trying to) help him avoid inciting diplomatic incidents.
But as time went on, Wynn-Williams grew ever more uncomfortable with the individual and collective behaviours, or the systemic issues, she saw every day. As she slipped out of favour with the inner circle, she realised she couldn’t stay silent about what she’d seen - and been a part of. Sometimes willingly, other times unknowing, but a part of nonetheless.
And now we have this book. Legend has it that Meta urnae chuffed about its contents, and no wonder: nobody comes out of this well. Meta sought an injunction over publication and promotion, so as at time of writing this post the author is unable to undertake promotional activity regarding the book. However, the very fact of Meta seeking to stop the book has all but guaranteed its notoriety, and is doing much of the promotional work on Macmillan’s behalf. Hiya Streisand effect.
Understanding a non-fiction author’s background always helps the reader orientate them within the context of the story they have to tell, and this background is a doozy; a shark attack in her childhood, causing near fatal complications. The casual dismissal of her cries that she was “about to die” is both entirely shocking as a parent and also goes some way to explain why she may have had an issue in her adult life with pushing back against authority.
But it’s once we start to hear the Facebook stories that things really start to go south. Wynn-Williams talked her way into a job with the company in 2011, believing her background in international diplomacy gave her a unique perspective on Facebook’s potential to change the world. Indeed, the author’s starry-eyed enthusiasm for the useful mission rings mostly true, and echoes down through the subsequent years, albeit with reducing frequency and sincerity as time goes on. By the end of the recounting, I perhaps had less belief in the professed ignorance of the author regarding the more nefarious undertakings of the company - though at the same time I’m not sure there’s much I’d put past them, up to and including full on perjury, so a spot of light deception within the employee pool doesn’t seem impossible.
Wynn-Williams was close to the centre of power, though, so however much you believe in her “last good yin standing” schtick, there’s no denying she has incredible stories to tell. My mouth was fully (unattractively) hanging open on multiple occasions. Like, I understand this book will have been legalled to the outer edge of the last page, but honestly if this is what made it INto the book, what had to be left out?
I won’t spoil it for you, but will provide a few teasers. There’s data misuse we already knew about: the inappropriate targeting of users at vulnerable moments (a teen girl deleting a selfie would immediately be served beauty, make-up, and skincare adverts) down to destabilising entire countries (Myanmar, allowing rampant misuse and misinformation partially due to one of the two Burmese-speaking contractors they bothered to recruit turning out to be a covert militia agent, or something).
And the people! Oh, the Careless People. The title of the book comes from The Great Gatsby (Tom and Daisy, liked to smash things up, famously) but also Zuckerberg’s long-held mantra of “move fast and break things”. Unsubtly, this includes people. The product was always the thing, and if a few bodies were left crumpled and twitching behind the bus then so be it. Zuckerberg and his cronies are described as being like teen boys given unimaginable wealth and unfettered power, which produces results as horrifying and predictable as you’d imagine. The man himself is portrayed as occasionally inspiring, but mostly whiny, naive, cynical and disinterested in anything outside of his bubble.
Sheryl Sandberg, too, ye gads. Not just leaning in (in fact not really that - the whole book-and-subsequent-speaking-engagement circus is described as more grift than grind) but driving a culture of unrelenting working hours. Wynn-Williams sending emails providing political talking points to Zuckerberg while in labour with her first child, and returning to work while still bleeding after delivering her second, is recounted with, yes, incredulity but no small sense of pride.
Oh, and the s*xual misconduct. A whole lot of that is reported, which is depressingly believable and predictably disregarded by the company as a whole. Urgh.
And I haven’t even touched on the brazen courting of the Chinese government with the sole aim of capturing market share in the country. Facebook’s aim of growth at all - any - cost appears to have driven a total suspension of any red lines, boundaries or data standards that may (doubt it) have existed in their unrelenting march through the rest of the world’s technology landscape. The author’s report of Zuckerberg’s appearance at Senate hearings and some responses he gave when set against the claims in this book set out a very clear 2 + 2 sum for the reader, drawing the equals sign but leaving the reader to fill in the unpleasant answer.
There’s also a noteable absence of certain topics - one assumes that even the most permissive of Legal reps couldn’t stomach the repercussions of direct discussion of Cambridge Analytica. or of the whole Russia … thing. Maybe that’s book two?
My kids are in their teens and Facebook to them is just a place for the credulous boomers to hang out. Even for me who used the site back since the throwing-sheep days (ask a Xennial) its relevance has reduced significantly. But this book was a reminder of how fundamentally the organisation has influenced global culture for the last twenty years, and rarely in the positive ways Wynn-Williams envisaged when she joined the company. It’s also a cautionary tale of how unchecked power and raging egos can cause monumental harm, in case you haven’t seen enough examples across history.
Zuckerberg’s a big fan of free speech, though, so I’m sure he won’t have much to complain about here.
You can order your copy of Careless People from Amazon (UK) here
Or order from bookshop.org here
I listened to the audiobook of Careless People, which is read by the author, and can recommend it for full immersion into the strange reality. You can find the Audible recording here.
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