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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

#351

Post by zeroonetwothree »

liendolucas wrote: post #51

The book is so good that once picked up you can't stop reading it. I've left Facebook many many many years ago and ever came back. The book just reinforced my aversion to any product that's out there that is designed to waste your time and manipulate your head. I sincerely hope that whoever ruled the gag on the author reverses the decision and at least reads the book and understands how nasty and evil Facebook is.

I too love to read books that reinforce my existing beliefs. Although I’m starting to think it’s less educational than the opposite :)

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

#352

Post by throwanem »

kingofmen wrote: post #285
Oarch wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I had a date with a backend engineer at Meta. I asked if they'd ever considered the societal implications of the work they did. They said "Oh wow I've never even thought about it". Probably a solid hire from Meta's perspective.

Or you missed the eye-rolling sarcasm in the answer they have to give on every goddam first date .

Imagine dating someone who works at Facebook, though. I can't imagine who would be so utterly dense as to offer so presumptuous a complaint, but he'd better be at least a 13 out of 10 or I'm not even bothering to pretend to go to the bathroom and then sneak out the back.

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

#353

Post by tonetheman »

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.

[dead]

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

#354

Post by jmye »

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…

> Nobody voted for Meta.

Of course they did - they “voted” for them every time they signed on to Facebook or Instagram or used WhatsApp, and they doubled down every time they let their children use them. They vote for them every time they elect grifters and spineless toadies to office.

These companies don’t have users by default. They have users because shitty people use shitty services made by even shittier people because they need their little hits of dopamine.

None of that, at all, has a fucking thing to do with being a “hermit living in the woods” unless you’re determined to make the contrived, obviously bullshit argument that “everything, everywhere is terrible so it’s all pointless so just keep scrolling”.

But that would be trivially asinine.

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

#355

Post by IncreasePosts »

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?

You could break the agreement and return the money. I doubt anyone could argue that a one time payment can gag you for the rest of eternity from certain speech.

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

#356

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #183
pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't have to agree to a disparagement clause... She accepted a lot of money to agree to it.

You make it sound like an a la carte option "I'll take the standard severance plus the non-disparagement bonus please!".

That's not how it works at most companies.

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

#357

Post by IncreasePosts »

pests wrote: post #296
jamiequint wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ok and? Let's say she's bitter, not principled. Now what? What's different now?

I'd suspect bitter people who embellish and tell falsehoods in an attempt to smear the thing they're bitter against. At least, more so than a principled person would.

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

#358

Post by petre »

prepend wrote: post #319
petre wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is it courageous? She’s profiting off her book. Seems pretty normal.

Are all these comments written by meta AI bots?

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

#359

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

charcircuit wrote: post #305
alterom wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, clearly the employee and the company have the same leverage in negotiation here. It's a free market! If she didn't like the offer, she could've just gotten herself fired from some other company instead. /s

She can just reject the offer. Nothing can compel you to sign a contract you don't want to.

No, but most people want to pay their bills, so they "want" to sign the severance agreement.

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

#360

Post by throwanem »

She evidently signed a nondisparagement agreement with teeth. She won't martyr herself if she gets sued over it and loses. If she didn't know what she was getting into, that's only because she was too foolish to wield her resources to the minimal extent of hiring a lawyer, for a look over the contract before she signed. Everyone wants a hero here. Don't be a child! This is real life, and if you ask me, Careless People should be subtitled "Exhibit A in the trial of Federal Prisoner BOP #12345-098." Yet here we are.

Wynn-Williams is no one's hero. Nor need she be. Nor should we require she be, in order to make use of the windfall of information she provided. But it's no surprise crime has no consequences, when even we - who have some professional responsibility to expertise in drawing the distinction between uses and abuses of technologies like Meta's - are so unreliable on the basic difference between epistemology and People Magazine. Upton Sinclair really did call it with that old line about understanding and salaries, huh?

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