Former Facebook policy executive Sarah Wynn-Williams has been barred for more than a year from speaking about her scathing memoir detailing her time at the company, even as it hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Now she is suing Meta Platforms in federal court, alleging that the arbitration enforcement action that the company brought to prevent her from promoting the book, and the underlying contract it is enforcing, are invalid.
"Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism" alleges a range of wrongdoing by executives at what was then called Facebook, including being willing to hand over millions of Chinese and U.S. citizens' data to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Wynn-Williams also alleges in the complaint that she experienced sexual harassment from her bosses Joel Kaplan, Meta's president of global affairs, and Sheryl Sandberg, Meta's former chief operating officer.
"This former employee is trying to use the legal process to sell books, which an arbitrator already ruled broke the agreement she signed with the company when she accepted a large financial settlement years ago," Meta spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement.
A representative for Sandberg didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
An arbitrator ruled shortly after the book was published by Macmillan's Flatiron imprint in March 2025 that Wynn-Williams had to temporarily stop making "disparaging, critical, or otherwise detrimental comments" about the Facebook owner or its employees, after Meta alleged she had violated terms of her 2017 severance agreement, which included a non-disparagement clause.
She is requesting that the arbitration order be lifted, the arbitration process halted and her severance agreement voided, and asks for compensatory damages to cover lost book sales and speaking fees.
"Careless People" has sold more than 130,000 print copies to date in the U.S., according to book tracker Circana BookScan.
Last month, Wynn-Williams sat silently on a stage at the Hay Festival, a prestigious literary and arts festival, as part of a panel on digital technology and public policy. She didn't speak about the book -- or at all. A Meta representative traveled to Wales for the festival and the company requested that the arbitrator sanction her for the event, according to the complaint.
Meta is seeking damages and sanctions amounting to more than $50,000 per violation of her severance agreement, according to Wynn-Williams's complaint.
Wynn-Williams, a former diplomat, joined Facebook in 2011. Her job often put her within the small circle that traveled with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to far-flung locations, and on private planes with Zuckerberg's second-in-command, Sandberg.
For much of her time at Facebook, Wynn-Williams reported to Kaplan. She wrote in her book that he emailed her joking about a vulgar sex act, interrogated her about her breasts and genitalia, grinded his body into hers at a corporate event and referred to himself as her "sugar daddy."
The company conducted an investigation into Kaplan while Wynn-Williams was working there, the complaint says. Kaplan accused her of instigating the investigation, and began to strip her of managerial authority, the complaint says.
To combat what she saw as retaliation, Wynn-Williams began collecting documentation to submit to internal investigators, but was fired before she could share the material, according to the complaint.
Meta previously said it opened an investigation into some of Kaplan's alleged behavior at the time and interviewed more than a dozen witnesses. Kaplan was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, the company said.
In the lawsuit, Wynn-Williams alleges that after she was fired, she signed a severance agreement, which included a non-disparagement agreement and mandatory arbitration clauses, under duress. Meta made reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in preapproved business expenses, including travel expenses for Zuckerberg and other Meta executives, conditional on her signing it, she says in the complaint.
She alleges that Meta ultimately reimbursed a fraction of the charges.
The next year, Facebook announced that it would no longer force employees to arbitrate claims related to sexual harassment. Facebook's vice president of people touted this policy change as "the right thing to do" and a "pivotal moment for our industry."
California enacted the Silenced No More Act in 2022, making it illegal for employers to use separation agreements that prohibit the disclosure of unlawful workplace acts.
Meta's board has said the company complies with the state law, writing in a 2022 proxy statement: "We do not require our personnel to enter into employment agreements that include non-disparagement clauses that would prevent them from discussing workplace conduct."
According to the complaint, Wynn-Williams took these statements -- and the lack of any explicit carve-outs for former employees or prior agreements -- to mean she was free to speak out. She subsequently filed whistleblower complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department.
Meta's lawyers sent Macmillan a letter soon after the book was announced, saying the company could be subject to defamation liability for not sharing an advance copy or allowing Meta to verify its fact-checking process. At the time, Macmillan's Flatiron imprint said the book went through a thorough vetting process and the publisher would continue to support it.
Meta then filed an arbitration demand and application for emergency relief, based on Wynn-Williams's severance agreement. An arbitrator issued an interim award barring Wynn-Williams, her lawyers and others from disparaging Meta or promoting the book. That order remains in effect.
News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with Meta.
Write to Keach Hagey at Keach.Hagey@wsj.com and Meghan Bobrowsky at meghan.bobrowsky@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 25, 2026 10:44 ET (14:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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