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

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

#261

Post by cousin_it »

ryandrake wrote: post #208
giwook wrote: post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

Unlike an elected government, who the common people at least in theory have a chance to replace via elections, the public pretty much has no say in what these companies and their leadership are allowed to do. Nobody voted for Meta. Nobody voted for Palantir. Nobody voted for Philip Morris. You can say that someone "voted with their wallet," but that doesn't point to a viable solution. "Not voting with your wallet" es…

The phrase "voting with your wallet" is hilarious to begin with, because it admits that rich people have more voting power and implies that's how it should be.

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

#262

Post by petre »

bena wrote: post #258
ryandrake wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that she did end up setting herself apart is what's remarkable. For every one of her who was able to self-reflect, become horrified of the ethics of what she was doing, and took the hard steps of stopping and breaking away, how many current and former Meta employees don't do this reflection and remain contributors to the problem? 1:100? 1:1,000? 1:10,000?

She didn’t set herself apart. She was fired. She was forced apart. That’s the issue here. Is this someone who found their morals or someone who found a stick with which to strike back at those who hurt her? One of those doesn’t require her to change at all.

Even if she was fired it was an act of courage and a step in the right direction to write a book about it. The company is cancer, no wonder they named it Meta.

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

#263

Post by jmull »

bena wrote: post #245
jmull wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one. Deflecting the criticism of Meta with a “whaddabout the author!” Formed as an answer to a question, but not one that was asked . A different account than last time, though, so I’ll ask you too: Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of Meta (lol)?

I think the point is that up until she was fired, she was Meta. She wasn’t a random employee, she was their global public policy director. She wasn’t just implementing policy, she was responsible for creating it. The question remains whether or not she would have written this book had she not been fired. It’s not like she quit due to her ethical objections

A third “whaddabout the author”!

It’s almost as if…

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

#264

Post by tzs »

bena wrote: post #245
jmull wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one. Deflecting the criticism of Meta with a “whaddabout the author!” Formed as an answer to a question, but not one that was asked . A different account than last time, though, so I’ll ask you too: Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of Meta (lol)?

I think the point is that up until she was fired, she was Meta. She wasn’t a random employee, she was their global public policy director. She wasn’t just implementing policy, she was responsible for creating it. The question remains whether or not she would have written this book had she not been fired. It’s not like she quit due to her ethical objections

The question does indeed remain, but is it a question whose answer matters?

If someone exposes a shady organization why should I care if they did it for ethical reasons or for something less noble like revenge for getting kicked out of that organization?

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

#265

Post by next_xibalba »

I'll not that she is "banned" from saying negative things about Meta not by any law, but by a contract she willingly signed, and for which she likely received financial compensation (aka "severance"). I'd like to know the amount she was paid in severance (or really, was it above and beyond the standard severance policy at the time), in addition the amount of the fines she faces for disparagement that are reported here.

That said, Meta seems to have a really stupid strategy here. They are only drawing more attention to this woman and her book, and making themselves looking really bad in the process. I'm not sure I believe her victim narrative, but Meta sure does look dumb and vindictive here.

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

#266

Post by rectang »

giwook wrote: post #4

I'm going to place an order for the book right now. I encourage you all to do the same. We the people hold the power to keep in check the immoral companies, governments, and other unscrupulous entities that would exploit the collective to enrich the few. And ultimately that's through our money and how we spend it. Screw Meta and their anti-human business model.

I've just bought my copy.

Best-sellers don't sell that many copies in the absolute sense. From what I can tell Careless People has sold around 200,000. Moving the needle just a bit is worth it.

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

#267

Post by croes »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #217
jmull wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fate of every whistleblower

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

#269

Post by jamiequint »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #205
jamiequint wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, principled would be refusing to sign the exit agreement and forefeiting the money, then writing the book.

But how are supposed to know in that moment that's what you wanna do? Aren't there different ways to be principled?

If you become massively rich from working somewhere, then suddenly discover your conscience when you're fired, you're bitter, not principled.

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

#270

Post by sillyfluke »

bena wrote: post #253
dmschulman wrote: post #168

It's been interesting to watch some of Wynn-William's claims be vindicated by recent court decisions about the addictive and manipulative qualities of Meta and Google's products. She left the company in 2017, and along with her many other allegations about Facebook and their executive team, had a good amount of information in the book about the reasoning, rationale, and management decisions that led to allowing adver…

She didn’t leave, she was fired. A significant difference.

If your first priority is judging the author then yes. If your first priority is judging the company, as it is with many people in this thread, then it is less so. In that case, it only suffices to ascertain the truth of the author's statements.

To take a more extreme example, if a mob hitman turned FBI informant blows the lid on the corruption within the FBI, if there is truth in their statements, then them having benefitted from the corruption they are exposing is frankly secondary to my primary focus in the matter.

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