Meta’s Efforts to Block Explosive Expose in Arbitration Likely to Fail, Labor Experts Say

Federal labor law enforcement is up in the air these days, thanks to the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the government. But experts say there are a host of laws — federal and state — that protect the just-released memoir Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, written by a former director of global public policy at Meta.

The book by former Facebook employee Sarah Wynn-Williams makes incendiary allegations of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by top-level executives during her seven years at the social media giant based in Menlo Park. In a blurb on Amazon, the book promises “shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes,” along with depictions of “unfettered power and a rotten company culture.”

Wynn-Williams also filed a whistle-blower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, claiming Meta was so desperate to operate in China and ingratiate itself with the Chinese Communist Party that it was willing to censor content and shut down political dissent.

This week, an arbitrator temporarily stopped Wynn-Williams from promoting the book, siding with Meta’s argument that she had violated the non-disparagement agreement or NDA she signed when she was an employee of the company. In the ruling, emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowen wrote that Meta “has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief.”

A Meta spokesperson wrote KQED, “We took immediate legal action due to the false and defamatory nature of the allegations.” They added, “This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives. Eight years ago, 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.”

Some former Meta employees are coming forward to defend the company, including Mike Rognlien, who wrote on Threads, “People are so thirsty for anything disparaging to Meta. I sat next to Sarah for 18 months when we both worked in the New York office and we were both working closely with Sheryl Sandberg at the time. Never a word of this was mentioned, and we talked shit about loooooots of stuff. I have recently/publicly taken meta task for everything that they’re doing to dismantle dei, but I didn’t have to make up a thing to tell the story.”

Arbitration is commonly understood to favor employers over employees, but “an arbitrator cannot violate the law,” said Catherine Fisk of UC Berkeley’s Law School, where she teaches employment and labor law. She also works as an arbitrator in labor management matters.

“To the extent that [Wynn-Williams] is criticizing working conditions, employees have had a right to criticize working conditions under federal labor law for, lo, these 90 years. And unless — and until — Congress repeals that statute, or the [the National Labor Relations Board] overturns its decision, or the Supreme Court overturns that decision, it’s protected concerted activities,” Fisk told KQED.

Stanford labor law professor William Gould, who served as chair of the NLRB from 1994 to 1998, wrote in an email, “The Biden National Labor Relations Board has held that an employer cannot lawfully condition a severance arrangement upon a non disclosure non disparagement promise agreement.” While Gould acknowledged the ruling is likely to be reversed by Trump appointees, the Biden ruling remains intact.

California law also makes it clear workers can talk about sexual harassment or gender-related misconduct without fear of reprisal from their employer.

Fisk added the arbitrator, Gowen, has no jurisdiction over the publishing company, although Meta could sue or threaten to sue the publisher for defamation. Macmillan Publishers, which published the book under its Flatiron Books imprint, posted on Facebook, “We are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.”

In 2018, Meta said it would no longer force employees to settle sexual harassment claims in private arbitration. In 2022, Meta’s board of directors wrote in a shareholder report, “We do not require or encourage our personnel to remain silent about harassment or discrimination.”

In 2023, the NLRB ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.