The lawyer representing Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams has disclosed that he too is barred from promoting her memoir under the terms of an interim arbitration ruling, after she was forced to sit in silence at the Hay Festival.
Ravi Naik told the BBC’s Today programme on Monday that the ruling prevents both Wynn-Wynn-Williams and her “agents” – a category that includes him – from promoting her book Careless People or making any disparaging statements about the company. “Never in my life have I faced a circumstance where my client cannot speak about her truth and I as a lawyer cannot speak on behalf of my client,” he said.
Arbitration ruling and its implications
The interim arbitration award was handed down in California, where the legal proceeding is taking place. Naik said that if he or his client promoted the book, Wynn-Williams would risk being forced to pay “punitive” damages. The award stems from a non-disparagement clause that Meta says Wynn-Williams signed as part of her 2017 severance agreement when she left the company.
According to Naik, Meta had stated in writing that Wynn-Williams’s scheduled appearance at the Hay Festival would be a “breach” of the interim award and that the company would seek sanctions if she promoted the book or criticised Meta during the event. Meta is now expected to seek enforcement of the California ruling through the British courts.
The financial penalties for any breach are severe. Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 (£37,000) for each violation of the separation agreement. The Republican senator Josh Hawley claimed at a Senate hearing last year that she had been threatened with a fine for every mention of Facebook in public. The Labour MP Louise Haigh has said Wynn-Williams is being “pushed to financial ruin” by Meta’s legal stance. Crucially, the arbitrator has not ruled on whether the content of the book is true or false – only on whether Wynn-Williams breached her non-disparagement agreement.
The gag order extends to any public comment. At the Hay Festival on Sunday, Wynn-Williams was due to appear on stage with the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and the academic Tim Wu. Instead, she sat in front of the audience for the scheduled hour without speaking, unable even to nod or shake her head. Introducing the panel, Cadwalladr said: “I think this might be a Hay first, in which we have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if [Mark] Zuckerberg is an asshole.” Following a letter from Wynn-Williams’s lawyers, the Hay Festival withdrew Careless People from sale during her appearance to avoid breaching Meta’s legal order.
Meta’s claims about the book
Meta has described Careless People as “a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives”. The company says the book contains false and defamatory allegations, including claims of sexual harassment against executives. Meta denies those allegations and maintains that Wynn-Williams was fired for “poor performance and toxic behaviour”.
Meta’s spokesman, Andy Stone, said the arbitration ruling “affirms” that the “false and defamatory book should never have been published”. However, the arbitrator did not rule on the veracity of the book’s content. Meta also says that Wynn-Williams voluntarily signed the non-disparagement agreement and has not been required to make any payments under it to date.
Wynn-Williams, a former director of public policy at Facebook (now Meta) who worked there from 2011 until her termination in 2017, published Careless People in March 2025. The book quickly became a New York Times bestseller, reaching number one in late March 2025 and selling well in the UK. Among its allegations are that Meta worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese Communist Party to develop censorship tools – a claim Wynn-Williams repeated in testimony before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee – and that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were dismissive of reports detailing sexism and systemic double standards within the company. She also alleges that her firing for “poor performance and toxic behaviour” was retaliation for reporting her former boss, Joel Kaplan, for sexual harassment. Meta has denied all these allegations.
Wynn-Williams previously filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing Meta of misleading investors. The legal and financial pressure, including the threat of fines, has reportedly threatened her with bankruptcy.
Meta’s attempts to suppress the book have been credited with boosting its sales – a phenomenon known as the Streisand effect. PEN America has described Meta’s legal campaign as “egregious hypocrisy” and a “blatant attempt to censor free speech” through “legal intimidation”.
