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Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

thetimes.com

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Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#31

I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws. Your employment agreement can include stuff like “if you say anything bad about us, even to your family in your own home, you owe us $50,000”. What in the world?? I guess NDA’s are like that, and used everywhere. Still it just seems wild

> I guess I just don’t understand contracts and laws.

What's to understand? Person agrees to thing. Person is held to thing.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#32
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech on one hand, legal system capture on the other.

There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.

In a normal society courts should be protecting from signing away basic freedoms

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#33

A good reminder not to sign contracts with non-disparagement clauses, if you can help it. Seems like good territory for California to ban like they did with non-competes. At the very least they should be restricted from inclusion in severance agreements - at that point the company already has you over a barrel.

I mean, a reasonable non-disparagement clause for your current employees makes sense. You don't want your employees actively undermining the company in public. If they don't believe in what you're doing, they should be able to quit and say whatever they want. It should end immediately when your employment ends. It should be illegal to make it compulsary for severance packages, as many companies do.

And there need to be serious regulations about how these agreements can be used, and those regulations should protect whistleblowers at all costs. Like a public figure suing for libel/slander/defamation, the burden of proving statements false should rest entirely with the company.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#35
post #6

> The ruling, awarded without proper notice by an emergency arbitrator (a non-court mediator that is part of the American Arbitration Association), actually said nothing about the truth or otherwise of Sarah’s devastating claims in her book. It made no mention of defamation. Instead, it relied on a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement with Facebook to silence her. It's well past time to rein in arbitra…

Honestly, I would be all for outright abolishing arbitration. I have yet to see anything actually good come out of arbitration other than a ruling that protects the entity that forced arbitration in the first place.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#36

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Much easier to do when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world. The cloud companies ability to not share the experience of those using the service, to be remote, is a much greater retreat than what was possible 101 years ago, it feels like.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#37
post #26

My understanding is that as part of a severance package she received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement" clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company. The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by the contract she signed. It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list. But it also sou…

It should not be legal to enforce this kind of thing 9 years after a person leaves your company. I get that it currently is legal, but have some principles. Just because this is legal doesn't mean it isn't morally reprehensible, and its legality should be challenged.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#38
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's (perhaps unfortunately) nothing stopping you from signing away your freedom of speech.

In a normal society courts should be protecting from signing away basic freedoms

What are 'basic freedoms'?

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#39
post #26

My understanding is that as part of a severance package she received in 2017 she agreed to some kind of "non-disparagement" clause. She then went on to write a book disparaging the company. The arbitrator didn't rule on the disparagement itself or if anything was true or false. Only ruled that she had to abide by the contract she signed. It sounds like an interesting book, and I'll add it to the list. But it also sou…

If I am understanding correctly wouldn't that make it a more principled "thing" on her end? Like if you know they're gonna have a good case against you and still blow the whistle anyway, isn't that acting through some kind of principle, versus, at least, acting out when you feel you will be protected?

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#40

A good reminder not to sign contracts with non-disparagement clauses, if you can help it. Seems like good territory for California to ban like they did with non-competes. At the very least they should be restricted from inclusion in severance agreements - at that point the company already has you over a barrel.

I'm not sure we can hold individuals responsible for signing these non-disparagement clauses. They often don't have a lawyer to review the paperwork and, I am sure, employers like Facebook aren't going to wait for a new hire to have a lawyer review that paperwork. There's a real pressure to sign everything with HR and get on to starting your new role.

Plus the power imbalance.

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