Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by loeg » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #194

jeffbee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a condition of the severance payment. She didn't need to sign it. She wanted the money. Then she violated the terms of the contract.

NDAs cannot cover whistleblowing of actual criminality, including sexual harassment, which is why modern NDAs take pains to disclaim that, so they wouldn't be invalidated on that basis. Presumably the behavior exposed in the book, while arguably immoral or amoral, doesn't rise to the standard of criminality.

Writing a book isn't covered whistleblowing. If she wants to go to the FBI or whatever, no one can stop her.

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

#212

Post by devilbunny » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

ghostpepper wrote: post #70

jeffbee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a condition of the severance payment. She didn't need to sign it. She wanted the money. Then she violated the terms of the contract.

I'm not a lawyer but even if it was, eg. a year's salary at the time she accepted it, is that really a fair price for a lifetime of silence?

Maybe? Is your argument that there is no fair price, or that it wasn’t enough? The former makes NDAs unenforceable.

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

#213

Post by SauntSolaire » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #40

SauntSolaire wrote: post #11

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.

If you can't hold individuals responsible for signing contracts on the premise that they might not read them, you've simultaneously invalidated most contracts, increased the cost to enter a contract (essentially subsidizing the law industry), and severely limited the ability for individuals to enter into contracts — not to mention infantilizing adults who are fully capable of reading a document before signing it.

Furthermore, this was a severance agreement, not employment agreement, so having a lawyer review your contract is not going to delay you from starting your role.

I have my issues with this situation, but "they might not have read/understood the contract" isn't one of them.

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

#214

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #158

RIMR wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It should not be legal to enforce full stop. If you don't want to be disparaged, make your conduct worthy of not being disparaged. When you're being lied about, sue for defamation; "non-disparagement clauses" are redundant at best, an attack on free speech at worst.

The reason they’re not redundant is that we, rightly, don’t allow people to sue for defamation for many kinds of unfair speech and even some kinds of untrue speech. It’s not defamatory for you to call me careless or mean or rude, even if I can produce ironclad proof that you know I’m careful and kind.

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

#215

Post by normie3000 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #36

grokcodec wrote: post #7

“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.

> when you exist 40ms and a firewall away from the world

That sure is an impressive ping!

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

#216

Post by wtallis » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #96

SauntSolaire wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would also preclude non-disclosure agreements. I'm curious if you also find those unreasonable?

Depends on what type of non-disclosure. Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those. Disclosing that boss treats people like trash should be allowed and I think lawmakers should have enough intelligence in their brains to make laws accordingly.

> Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those.

I would love to see NDAs for trade secrets limited in a way that incentivizes companies to rely on patent protection instead, where the system is set up to ensure that knowledge eventually becomes public record and freely usable by anyone. It would be very interesting to see how eg. the tech industry would change if trade secret protection were limited to a meaningfully shorter duration than patents.

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

#217

Post by Nifty3929 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #186

Aurornis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

A strange response. Rather than address the comment you change the subject, “whaddabout the author!” Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of “Meta”? (lol, that name gets me every time. Might as well have renamed themselves NoIdeaWhatToDoNow)

Because recognizing the author as conflicted and an unreliable narrator changes how you should weight and consider the information they are providing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is untrue - but it does add extra, valuable information to how much you trust it.

If someone tells me something, I'm mostly likely to believe it without further investigation. But not always.

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

#218

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

vntok wrote: post #203

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe part of the point is to support the authors a bit through purchasing the book.

Probably not; OP wants to "check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities" and to "Screw Meta and their anti-human business model". Giving money to the author rather than getting it for free has absolutely nothing to do with that laudable goal. It's not as if the commenter's money would magically go to Meta if they did not give it to the book's author instead.

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by everybodyknows » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #157

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "non-disparagement" clause Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

I don't think such clauses have ever been held to prevent people from testifying in criminal trials. Signing book deals on the other hand... If it's true that she signed a severance deal, e.g. signed this when she was leaving and therefore already knew she was agreeing to protect a bunch of snakes.. Well she fucked up. At the point when she signed that agreement she was already informed and aware of what kind of peop…

Still looking for the part where, in acknowledgement of her own culpability, she assigns all book royalties to some charity that, say, provides counseling to troubled teenagers ...

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

#220

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #199

jonahx wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, I think making such non-disparagement clauses illegal is an interesting idea, and could be a net positive. That said, I think the slavery comparison is a stretch. The situation up for debate is: Should you be able to voluntarily accept money in exchange for promising not to say bad things about someone or some company? I don't see a good faith interpretation of that as "signing yourself into slavery".

Nobody was trying to equate non-disparagement clauses with slavery. The relevance of slavery here is as an example of the kind of contract terms that everyone should be able to agree are rightly invalid and unenforceable. Any argument in favor of contract enforceability that would apply to a slavery contract just as easily as it applies to a non-disparagement contract is a bad argument , or at least woefully incomple…

The general principle is that you shouldn't be able to "sign away" something that's a constitutional or human right. Like the right to freely speak, the right to practice a religion, the right to be paid for work, and so on. Imagine if the severance contract specified that she had to convert to Islam in order to get her severance, or that she had to sacrifice a child. No court in the country would consider those clauses conscionable. Yet, somehow companies are allowed to gag your free speech as a condition in a contract? It makes no sense why this is allowed.