The article: “Meta has served a gagging order on Sarah and is attempting to fine her $50,000 for every breach of that order. She is on the verge of bankruptcy.”
A little deeper in the article: It is understood that the $50,000 figure represents the damages Wynn-Williams has to pay for material breaches of the separation agreement she signed when she left Meta in 2017. Meta has emphasised that Wynn-Williams entered into the non-disparagement agreement voluntarily as part of her departure. Meta said that to date, Wynn-Williams had not been forced to make any payments under the agreement.
Alternative: Woman voluntarily signs non-disparagement agreenment with $50K penalty for each breach. Goes on to repeatedly breach agreement, publish a book full of disparaging commentary. Has yet to pay a cent to the company.
> An MP has claimed in parliament that Mark Zuckerberg’s company was trying to “silence and punish” Sarah Wynn-Williams
By doing so in parliament they have immunity (presumably the worry would be defamation) for pushing this, true or false.
I'm not much of a Meta fan, but there seems to be less to this story every paragraph you read of the article.
> meant to belittle the value or importance of someone or something : serving or intended to disparage someone or something
Maybe it is not meant to belittle, but merely uncovering the truth. Who is to know, what her intention was, when releasing a book? I guess one would have to read that book and check how she formulated things, to know, whether it is intentionally belittling the "value" of Meta.
Also, subjectively speaking: How does one belittle the value of something that already has net negative value for society?
Maybe the waters are a little bit murky there.
But anyway, this goes to show, how these companies consume your soul. Trying to prevent you from ever revealing the truth about them and their illegal activities.
I think it's a case where the law should simply say such clauses are not enforcible.
The fact that you can't speak the 100% truth, and not get sued there is quite disgusting. The truth should always be permitted speech.
In practice the law defends the offenders. You can't speak up if you don't have a hard proof. I think it's ridiculous but so is a lot of civil law. Americans often don't appreciate how well they have it in comparison.
Even if you can prove in many places.
Also if someone robs your house and gets hurt due to some noncompliance on your part they can sue you and win.
The law doesn't give a shit about truth but it only cares about keeping thing running smoothly as they currently are.
Conveniently, that makes it easy to write your praise. It doesn't take much to go from "demographics like 'teenage girls with body insecurities' want relevant ads like beauty products! We're helping consumers to satisfy their needs!" to "showing teen girls aspirational images that drive them to buy beauty products (and happen to drive insecurities) is just helping them reach their potential! We're helping consumers to uncover needs they didn't know they had!" Wherever your comfort line was to decide to work there, you can probably drive it a little further with similar reasoning.
So, reporting evil should always be allowed.
"Zelphirkalt claims they do not abuse their child. Despite this their kid has been seen at the ER for broken bones multiple times in the last 10 years, and spent a few months in therapy."
Even if I know that your kid's ER visits were for:
1) a broken leg from a fall out of a tree
2) a broken finger from their martial arts lessons
3) a broken nose from defending themselves in a fight
and that the therapy was mandated by the school system as a result of the fight and a "zero tolerance" policy, the text of the statements in question are still absolute truth. I've just phrased it in such a way (and declined to report on other truths) that a reader is encouraged to draw the conclusion that you abuse your kid physically and emotionally. I think if I published something like that in a book, you'd certainly consider it disparaging, and I think a court might agree if you were enforcing a non-disparagement contract I had signed with you.
That said (at least in the US) I doubt a court would find it to be "libel" or "slander", since those are MUCH higher bars to clear by default and assuming you were a famous individual (or company like facebook) the bar is even higher. Something like this would likely hinge on my own reputation and how likely a reader is to assume I'm speaking from "hidden knowledge" as opposed to coming to a given conclusion from public knowledge.
Does that matter at all? They can destroy this whistleblower financially without ever having the "non-disparagement agreement" enforced.
So No, it doesn’t matter if she’s paid it or not. Just being asked to pay in a way that is defensible in court, could make you bankrupt.
But practically Meta probably wants Sarah to not publish the book. Sarah may get even more money from another deal with Meta :)
It's pretty common for technical people (and corporate PR) to misunderstand how the machinery of the judicial system can be used and abused.
There’s no principle saying that you have to be on the side of an organization being exposed for behavior that is horrible for society, just because they may have a legally sound argument in court.
Laws and rules and courts are fully arbitrary and exist in search of justice.
If the rules brought us to this place, of what use were the rules?
But this line of argument doesn’t always hold with me. At some point, the behaviour of a company or person could be so heinous, that no amount of voluntary signing of an agreement should prevent you from exposing them.
"I then sued my victim for causing me harm."
But it's hard to know about a situation when it's complex and you're a long way away from it. Maybe the book was unfair. Maybe it was fair. Or both. Maybe what happened was so bad it should supersede this kind of agreement. Who decides, and how?
If the author would report a crime she would be protected. The author is just airing some dirty laundry. She was paid money in exchange for not airing said dirty laundry. Hence her troubles now. Cry me a river.
[0] Whisleblower protections: https://www.dol.gov/general/topics/whistleblower
It's really quite simple.
IMHO, the book has little or nothing about the kind of things we usually see called out in NDA breaches: ideas or code names from products, details on contract negotiations with competitors, internal processes, etc. The author was involved with managing relationships between Facebook and foreign governments and this makes up the meat of the book.
I am not aware of their separation agreement being published, but you have to be a special type of stupid to work for Facebook as an exec, get a $500k advance on a book you wrote about Meta, and then go bankrupt. From the limited information I have I can see why Facebook fired her.
You need to feel afraid for the ability for a corporation to so easily get you to surrender your own fundamental rights.
It’s not a coincidence you rarely hear stories like this in Scandinavian or even broader European countries because they have basic safety nets that mean you don’t need to sign away your rights in order to just live peacefully.
I am all for safety nets, and I actually live in a country with stronger safety nets than the USA, but I still don’t feel sorry for the author who basically has had every card to be extremely wealthy and squandered it.
Also realize that it isn’t private companies job to fix the broken social system in the USA, usually separation agreements for high paid employees offer severance well above and beyond the legal requirements (I have seen 3 months to a year including accelerated vesting in some cases), and a condition of accepting those benefits above and beyond the laws is you don’t disparage your employer. If you don’t accept the agreement you get the bare minimum according to the laws but you are then not bound to the disparage clauses.
It blew my USA colleagues when I told them I can take over a year of legally mandated parental leave and there is nothing the company can do about it.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-whistleblowers-ask...
Just to clarify, OpenAI did change their agreement (to some degree) after the SEC put pressure on them. In Facebook’s case the SEC has been notably silent despite the calls from US senators (AFAICT).
Life threatening medical problems are obviously horrific and she has my full sympathies. But I'm having a tough time drawing a from that to "coercion" for someone who was a director at Facebook.
You're continuing your health insurance. You're paying for your insurance, not your medical care.
She was an executive at Facebook. If she hasn't saved enough for COBRA then I don't even know what to say.
If you're an executive at Facebook, I think you have the ability to plan things well. If you still can't save any money, at that point it's hard to see how it's not just your fault.
I don't know what other sense there is? And what possible relevance is there of the relationship between her role and what Zuck thought? I'm sure Zuck doesn't care much about accounting or HR either. Lots of well paid executives work in areas of corporations that aren't the founder's main focus. That's the kind of problem most people would love to have.
If you're surprised media articles don't ask questions and get basic facts wrong, go read any article about a topic you have direct experience with.
She had director in her title and reported directly to a vice president, Joel Kaplan, who is now a C-level officer. She managed staff.
That's seriously high up in the corporate hierarchy at Facebook. Feel free to read more:
"She managed a growing staff and oversaw government relations for entire continents, including Asia and South America. She reported to corporate vice presidents and had direct contact with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, then the chief operating officer."
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-alleges-h...
So again, I don't what you mean by "wasn't an executive in the sense you're thinking". She's seems to be exactly an executive in the sense that everyone thinks.
I once met with a person who used to be a vice president in a major US bank. I was impressed, until much later when I discovered that there were three thousand “vice presidents” in that bank.
The exact level hierarchy varies from bank to bank, but typically runs something like
Analyst - Associate - (Associate VP) - VP - Director/Executive Director/Senior VP - Managing Director
Zuck cares about growing into China. He cares about powerful people pretending they like him. He couldn't give less of a care about people dying, about his platforms being used to spread misinformation, about that misinformation corrupting elections and descending the world into authoritarianism, about the spread of hate speech, or anything else.
Ask your local nurse or schoolteacher how they feel about being "thanked" while everyone keeps voting against any meaningful change that would actually help them.
This is a powerful assumption given how expensive medicine is in the US - even with insurance - and how often people in their adulthood need medical treatment.
Just a few months ago a close friend was denied her diabetes medication because her bloodwork showed her levels (of whatever they were testing) were nominal. The problem is, those tests showing normal is the exact thing you'd measure if the medication is working (if she was somehow no longer diabetic and taking medication then the levels also wouldn't her nominal). Her and her husband both have medical degrees too, and it took weeks to get the insurance to agree to cover the costs. All because someone only knew how to look at some spreadsheet but not how to interpret that data... (a common occurrence, even in our (HN's userbase) own field)
I'm not sure why this is shocking to anyone. Did we forget Luigi Mangione so quickly? His actions speak to the level of frustration Americans have with this system. You do not need to condone his actions (which I do not) to recognize the plight he represents.
> The point is, you're not suddenly facing ruinous bankrupting medical expenses.
I'm not sure what issue she ha{s,d} but I'll say that when my mom had cancer my dad was a top salesman for a major insurance company, we had the best plan you could get, and despite that they paid well over a hundred grand in medical expenses. This was 2 decades ago, he was making over a quarter million a year, and we were living on a very tight budget. Even if we had a lot in the bank I'm certain my family would have been completely financially ruined had we added the expenses of COBRA and removed the loss of income.
I do not think you're looking at the reality of the situation clearly. Maybe you're right, but none of us know the full details. My point is that the explanation is far from an unreasonable one, so it cannot be dismissed so easily. We'll need to know more to determine if your intuition is correct. But as of now, it is certainly too hasty
Yes the original plan was great. No, we didn't need a plan that great. No we couldn't "downgrade". With the bigger income suddenly gone, coming up with $2800/mo in cash was a huge problem. COBRA is useless for many/most, unless your coverage is shite and the cost to the employer low.
As that became more important her role grew but she was never really promoted.
She also was not well informed about how tech compensation works and negotiated poorly (no stock) she came from an NGO background in New Zealand.
Her salary was probably quite a bit more than the average American but she was living in expensive areas (DC and SV) and interacting with extremely wealthy people. At one point Sheryl Sandburg got annoyed that she was leaving work for childcare and told her to hire a live-in nanny. She was living paycheck-to-paycheck on a high income with no wealth accumulation (many such cases).
If you're an executive at Facebook, you should know how to research negotiation and compensation, and figure out a living situation where you're saving money. You're in the big leagues. If Sheryl expected her to be able to hire a full time nanny, then that's an excellent time to renegotiate a salary than can afford that.
If you're an entry-level worker who can't make ends meet in San Fran then of course I sympathize greatly! But if you're an executive at Facebook making enough money that you can even consider a full time nanny... you're not facing any level of "hardship" by which an offer of even more money in exchange for non-disparagement could be considered "coercion". Nobody is in poverty here. Nobody is going to wind up hungry or on the street.
So yes, she was 1-3 months away of poverty while caring for a baby.
Poverty can come really quickly, you just need a few incidents to stack.
If I made, say, $300K/yr and was living paycheck-to-paycheck with zero savings after many years with the company, I'd say I was making highly irresponsible spending choices.
And she had a husband too, who sounds like he was working.
So something's just not adding up. It doesn't make any sense that a director-level executive at Facebook is 1-3 months away from "poverty".
when you don't mention or acknowledge this aspect, you are not making a convincing argument. perhaps they gave her a very attractive severance package, and you don't know that they didn't, so how can you draw a conclusion?
life threatening health problems is not a free pass to "i get whatever i want", not for me, not for you, and not for her, although we know that in the world of Karens it is an entitlement.
Like what? If it's something you sign when you leave, it generally comes down to whether you want some level of severance payments/accelerated vesting or not, even when you're fired (when you're at the executive level).
Basically, the company says: if you agree not to sue us or disparage us, here's a bunch of money.
There are no threats. The consequence is, if you don't sign, you don't get the extra money. It's completely and entirely voluntary.
She was a highly paid executive who chose to get even more money in exchange for keeping her mouth shut. Now I think it's great she wrote the book, I love transparency. But nobody can be surprised Facebook is taking legal action when she presumably took their money under an agreement not to disparage. Nobody made her take the extra money.
She wasn't homeless, on the street, alone, without skills or education, where she had no choice. Let's keep things in perspective here.
So yes, it is absolutely voluntarily to sign something like that. Otherwise, what does taking responsibility for your actions even mean?
> She wasn't homeless
All I'm saying is that if a director-level executive who had worked at Facebook for years doesn't meet the bar as someone who can sign financial agreements without being coerced, then essentially nobody can. And then where does that leave us? Nobody is allowed to negotiate and sign contracts because everything is considered coercive?
At some point you have to be considered an adult who is responsible for the agreements you enter into. (Unless there's actual coercion, you know like you're at gunpoint, or if a contract is based on fraud, etc.)
> without being coerced
> you know like you're at gunpoint
Legally speaking, coercion doesn't require threats of physical harm, it also covers threats of financial or legal harm as well. So your interpretation is clearly too extreme.
There's a lot of gray area here and these non disparaging agreements are without a doubt in them. If you have an expectation of getting a severance package, like many companies offer as incentive programs (much like they used to offer pensions) and you later learn that you only get it on the condition of a non disparaging agreement, that can be reasonably interpreted as coercion. Is it or is it not is up to the lawyers, but let's not act like a situation like that is not in the gray area.
You keep mentioning her salary. Does anyone have actual numbers? We see people who read her book saying she was living paycheck to paycheck, so what's the argument? She's bad with money? Okay? So what? What difference does that actually make? It anything her lack of good financial planning (a thing most people aren't good at, regardless of income level) makes it easier to strong arm her. Again, is that coercion in the legal sense? Let's let the lawyers figure that out because we're just two idiots talking on the internet who don't have nearly enough information to make good conclusions.
But honestly, I'm more curious why you're so invested in this and quick to vilify her. We've had a lot of conversations over the years and I don't recall you ever being so quick to judge. Why is it that we're talking about her legal authorization to discuss Meta executives and not she claimed they did. Shouldn't that be our main concern? We shouldn't believe her outright but we'll have to make our own judgements on that, but isn't that the real story here? I care more about that than if she changed her mind and is now facing legal troubles. The answers to the truth of what she claims is critical to determining if her non disparaging contract was even legal and if she can be prosecuted for violating it. If she's a true whistleblower then it doesn't matter what she signed because the contract wouldn't legally be able to cover such things.
So at the end of the day, why does it matter. Right or wrong we're concentrating all our efforts on the wrong discussion. We're idiots in the Internet, not lawyers. But we are also Internet users and her claims have implications for all of us. So who fucking cares if she violated her contract or if the contract is invalid, what matters most is the validity of her claims. Why are we all acting like the validity of the contract has any influence on the validity of her claims. We're being fucking insane right now
Meta doesn't do that. Especially if you are yeeted. You'll get 6 months wage at best.
Is there an incentive to have unenforceable clauses? Yes, of course. The same way one might be incentivized to say they will harm you if you do not do what they want even if they have no intention of harming you.
It's called "a bluff". Play some poker, you'll see how effective this strategy really is.
And some aspects of the agreement would be fine. No spilling actual business relevant secrets, nothing that would count as libel or slander, etc.
Companies don't need to offer severance to prevent ex employees from spilling business secrets, doing so is a criminal offense.
Best example in software are non competes.
A company can make you sign something that doesn't allow you to do any software development when you're a developer. You can sign that today then do the opposite tomorrow because that's just against the law.
See:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/did-califor...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-labor-board-limits-gag-clau...
If the laundry is dirty, it should be aired. No one is better off for hiding it, many people are worse for hiding it.
And a real person, saying real(true) things about an unreal(corporation) person, should always be ok.
Not sure if all three conditions apply here though.
I suppose when one side has lawyers, we all need them now?
It is not illegal to refrain from speaking. If you want to enter into a contract that requires you not to speak under certain circumstances there is probably nothing inherently unenforceable about it.
I'm pretty sure for example it would be legal for the Diogenes Club [1] to expel you if you violated their no talking rule, if someone would actually make a real Diogenes Club.
Making anyone free to reveal anything without consequences even after entering into an agreement about it isn’t going to work. You’re probably thinking only about the narrow case where a company is wrong and the employee is whistleblowing, but that is protected when done through the right channels.
However this wasn’t really whistleblowing. This was someone trying to make profit on her own book and sell more copies by sharing info she agreed not to.
> On the simplest level, a whistleblower is someone who reports waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, or dangers to public health and safety to someone who is in the position to rectify the wrongdoing. [0]
So, you'll still be protected as long as you took the right steps. These usually include oral reports btw. There's no condition that prevents you from writing some tell all later. In fact, it's not that uncommon. Especially given that if you're a whistleblower you might end up making yourself unemployable. So personally I'm fine with making money from a book deal and speaking deals. Their time is still as valuable as anyone else's, right? What matters is if procedure was correctly followed. IMO it's like people making money filming themselves doing charity. Yeah, I'm not sure that's the greatest thing but at the end of the day the charitable actions are performed, right? May not be the ideal case, but I'd rather someone do something good for the wrong reasons than for them not to do good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'll also add that there's many whistleblower programs that will pay you to blow the whistle. Usually it'll be in the form of a percentage of the fine issued against the offending entity. The IRS offers 15-30%[1].
Another low point: MZ working with communist party chiefs to engineer a "chinese" version of facebook where the government could see all citizens' private information at will.
She REALLY stuck her neck out for millions/billions of people's basic rights. The fact that she is facing bankruptcy for it just makes her that much more of a badass.
I do believe Meta is very bad for the world and has way too much power. Anything that can get people to open their eyes to this is important. Dividing those that are trying isn’t helping.
It's a gag, pure and simple. You should always be able to tell your own story -- what you lived through, what you lost, who failed you. But these clauses are everywhere now, slipped into contracts and settlements, letting corporations bury their mistakes and keep the next person in line from knowing what's coming.
I learned this the hard way.
I grew up believing USAA was the gold standard of insurance. My grandfather used to say, "I won't always be around, but USAA will always have your back." So when my house flooded, I trusted them. They assigned me a contractor and promised -- in writing, on their website (it's still there: https://www.usaa.com/perks/home-solutions/contractor/) -- that I'd get a five-year workmanship warranty on the repairs.
What I got was a disaster.
Their contractor turned my house into a construction horror show. They cracked my foundation slab by drilling into it to move a drain -- cutting tension cables in the process. They killed two huge front-yard trees by dumping chemicals on them. They didn't scrape off the old glue before laying new flooring, so the planks bent and shifted underfoot. They painted latex over oil, so the paint peeled off in sheets. They tiled the bathroom directly onto the subfloor with no moisture barrier, ignored termite damage behind the walls, dropped and damaged new appliances -- cook top and oven were both damaged. Since they used multiple sub-contractors, their crews even the new cabinets they installed were cracked and chipped in over a dozen places. They stole everything from my garage -- even stole the ice cube maker from my fridge!
It got worse.
They cracked the gas line and left it leaking (I had to call the fire department). They installed two sinks with the hot and cold lines reversed. Messed up all of my GCFI outlets, and they left the entire upstairs without electricity and without working outlets at all. They even covered electrical outlets with drywall instead of cutting openings where the plugs had been. Every corner I turned revealed something new, often dangerous -- and I documented it all with photos, videos, emails, and texts. I thought having a paper trail meant I was safe.
When I complained, we went into mediation. The contractor -- a steam-cleaning company that had only recently started doing restoration work -- admitted they'd screwed up. One of their managers even wrote, "Look, the situation at your house is unfortunate. We hired subcontractors we thought we could trust, but clearly we didn't supervise them correctly. This isn't how we normally operate, but we'll make this right."
We built a punch list of fixes. They agreed to pay my living expenses while I was displaced.
Then they vanished.
No crews. No repairs. No communication. No reimbursement. I kept sending receipts -- just like we agreed -- and got nothing. USAA went quiet too. Three months later, someone at USAA finally said, "Look, I can't help you, but why haven't you hired a lawyer yet?"
I said, "Because I trusted you."
After a year of silence, USAA's mediation team -- who had never set foot in my house and were based in another state -- emailed me: "Your house had issues no contractor could have foreseen," they said. The work, while clearly bad, was apparently "about what you could expect from the average contractor in Austin right now." They knocked $2,000 off the bill. I had to spend $80,000 fixing the foundation slab alone. (All told, I've spent over $300k repairing my house to date, and there's still more to do... just for context, I only paid $275k for my house in 2010...)
And here's what I didn't know: the "mediation" wasn't neutral. It was run through Contractor Connection -- a company that exists to serve insurance carriers. I was never really their customer. USAA was. Any pressure to do the right thing had to come from USAA -- and USAA simply didn't care.
So I finally hired a lawyer. Expensive. Slow. A year later, we finally had our "day in court." Except it wasn't court -- there's no public record, no evidence allowed (meaning my entire photo slide deck showing all the issues wasn't even looked at!), no jury of sane peers who could see this from a human angle. Just arbitration with a "neutral" retired judge who had spent the past two years doing nothing but USAA cases. (Think she'd have had that job for two years if she ever ruled against the insurance company?) At one point she said, "We have to give the benefit of the doubt to these hard-working contractors who came to aid you in your hour of need. If we don't protect them, they won't be there when others need them."
You can imagine how her ruling went.
(Another thing everyone should know about Texas before moving here: there are no "Licensed Contractors." So even though I had a professional inspection outlining all the issues, when it came time to present it, I said, "It's clear a professional didn't do this work." And the contractor's lawyer was able to shamelessly say, "Nowhere in the contract does it say a professional would do the work." So shady.)
The contractor wanted me to pay their legal fees. Pay for the full amount of the repairs -- wouldn't even tell me what the insurance company had agreed to pay, but claimed the value of their work was three times higher than any number I had seen until that point. It still bothers me that they were allowed to just make up a number -- and all the written emails and texts saying they'd make things right, pay my living expenses, were just ignored.
But what killed my will to fight... mid-way through, my lawyer told me that if I wanted to proceed to trial, I'd need a $250,000 retainer up front -- and it would drag on for two or three more years. And I wouldn't be allowed to fix or move back into my house until it was done because they would need the house as evidence. By then I was exhausted, broke, and just wanted it over. Ten hours into a marathon arbitration session -- literally as the building's janitorial staff was locking doors -- I agreed to a deal to just make all this stop. We'd all just walk away. I'd keep the house in the state it was, we'd never have to go through mediation again or do another blue-tape walk-through, but they weren't paying for anything -- not even the expenses they'd already agreed to pay, certainly not the damages to my house.
At the end my lawyer pointed me to a DocuSign field and said, "Sign here." After I said, "Well, at least I can warn other people with a brutal Yelp review," my lawyer said: "No, you can't. You signed a non-disparagement clause." At no point was this talked about before I signed it. When I asked, "Why didn't you tell me?" my lawyer just said, "Oh, these are really standard..."
And apparently, she didn't think it was worth bringing up because another one had already been in the original contract I signed while standing in two inches of water in my living room. Looking back, it feels like they knew from the start they weren't going to deliver quality work -- and they wanted to make sure anyone who went through mediation could never speak publicly about it again. (Technically it doesn't cover USAA, but calling them "independent" is like calling a husband and wife independent -- legally separate maybe, but joined at the hip in every way that matters.)
That's the real power of these clauses: they don't just close your case, they erase it. They wipe away the evidence, silence the people who lived it, and make sure the next homeowner walks into the same trap with no warning. And there's a power dynamic. They've done this a hundred times. They show up with the contract they want. You're acting in the moment, often stressed or panicked. You think you're just signing to pay them -- but really, you're signing to let them off the hook for any damages, and do things in the shadiest way they can do them. And no matter what they say or do after that, the only thing that matters is the original contract.
So I can't name the contractor in Austin. But I can tell you it was USAA's contractor. And everything I went through was part of a process that USAA designed. =P
Insurance companies aren't there to help you. They're there to protect their balance sheet. If you get crushed in the process, that's acceptable collateral damage. They don't care about making you whole -- only about checking boxes in a process designed to minimize payouts and keep the stock price climbing.
And non-disparagement clauses? They're how corporations make sure no one ever finds out -- so they can keep getting away with it.
I think any contractor who relies heavily on sub-contractors is a little shady by default. At that point they aren't paying for a good job, just for someone to "put tiles on the bathroom wall." If anything slows that person down, they don't get paid. So the sub-contractor has no incentive to call out flaws, or termite damage, or any order of operations issues that might stop them from finishing that day. Sub-contractors just want to get in, get done, and get paid.
It's better to find a contractor who does the work themselves, or at least one you trust as a partner to inspect the work of their crews. But here's the catch here... time is money. Someone has to absorb the cost of delays. Those days don't just get refunded. That's why the relationship is so important. You need to make it clear you're willing to pay for things to be done right. If that message doesn't reach every person who walks onto the job, corners will get cut.
But to even recognize when corners are being cut, you need some basic knowledge of building techniques. Knowing the "right way" to do a job makes all the difference.
When the big freeze hit Austin a few years ago, a lot of pipes burst around town. Some of my neighbors had flooding too, but their stories sound nothing like mine. Most of them just say, "Hey, I got a remodeled bathroom!" or "Hey, I got new floors out of it." I don't think every contractor is shady. But I did get a shady contractor. Another way to spot them... anyone willing to do "insurance prices" is usually looking for ways to cut every corner. Insurance is really a scam that forces you to use the worst contractors for the job... it's unfortunate.
The contractor wasn't just shady with me -- they were shady with the insurance company too. Honestly, I'd call it attempted fraud. At first I didn't catch on. For example, they told me, "Your laundry room doesn't have a drain. We can add one to bring it up to code, and the insurance company will pay for it." That sounds good to a homeowner to hear the insurance company will pay for it, but it should have been a giant red flag. If they're looking to pad the bills that they send a supposed partner, you can be sure they'll play games with you too.
Another example: they said I needed a brand-new subfloor to fix a few "soft spots" and creaks in a 20-year-old second-story floor. The upcharge was about $8,000. What they should have done was tighten the existing boards in the bad spots and spread self-leveling compound across the whole thing. Instead, they just dropped new plywood on top of the old plywood. Later, another contractor told me this wasn't even a fix. The floor still had the same soft spots and creaks. (Seriously WTF!) And then the top step was the wrong height; it's more dangerous than I would have imagined -- everyone tripped on it. Fixing it after the fact was expensive.
Live and learn!
For the record, the standard process is straightforward: rip up the old floor, tighten the subfloor down (because after 20 years it will have shifted), apply self-leveling compound, wait a day for it to dry, then lay the new floor. That's it. But I suspect they tried to add another layer of plywood because there's no "wait a day" step there; if they do it the wrong way, they don't have to have a crew come back out. But there shouldn't have been an upcharge or anything special needed. The contractor just took advantage of the fact that I'd asked about the soft spots, knew I didn't know the right fix, and made up something expensive.
Anyway, I don't share this story to scare anyone away from homeownership. Owning a house can be great. The real lesson is: educate yourself. Learn how homes are built and repaired. Watch a few "inspection gone wrong" videos on YouTube. Try small projects -- replace trim, hang a door, tile a bathroom, or even just build a birdhouse. Once you know the basics, you'll be able to tell when a contractor is cutting corners or upselling you on nonsense.
(So many good videos that show you how to do this work yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvo-n2AYZnA )
Knowledge is your best defense against shady folks and Mickey Mouse workmanship.
Like innocent people voluntarily sign guilty plea to end the torture. There was a story about people agreed to plea guilty for shaken baby syndrome.
Sounds like another way of saying stuff they acknowledge is true. :P
-Out of date and previously reported, bro.
It also took a lot of little things and tried to make them sound like a really big deal, like how Meta spent money on measures to reduce Zuckerberg’s exposure to COVID. I guess these things sound bad to people who dislike CEOs, but it’s in any big company’s interest to take extra precautions to prevent their CEO from getting sick.
I think the “whistleblower” designation falls flat because there wasn’t really any whistleblowing in the book as far as I can tell. It was a disgruntled fired employee trying to mix up old news stories with some gossip and sell it for personal gain.
In general, the “whistleblowers” who write books and sell them to the public are very different than real whistleblowers who take evidence to the government or journalists. This person was firmly in the former group.
I don’t agree with the excessive restrictions the government there is putting on her. Sadly seems like par for the course for speech over there right now.
Zika virus. This was before Covid.
> It was mostly a bland rehashing of old news combined with some weird office hearsay
Which is very much 1st amendment (yes I know private company etc. etc.).
But it wasn't bland, it was actually quite engaging. I get that you don't like her, but I don't think that its a good thing that a large company who values "freedom of expression" and trumpeted its unvarnished support for freedom of speech is trying to bankrupt an _author_.
Its not like there are industrial secrets there either.
Thanks! My mistake.
> Which is very much 1st amendment (yes I know private company etc. etc.).
1st amendment to say it, yes, but 1st amendment does not guarantee freedom from repercussions as agreed upon by private contracts.
This detail from the article is also important:
> Meta has emphasised that Wynn-Williams entered into the non-disparagement agreement voluntarily as part of her departure.
> Meta said that to date, Wynn-Williams had not been forced to make any payments under the agreement.
Given that Meta hasn't actually forced her to pay anything for the agreement, this whole "faces bankruptcy" article is starting to feel like another round of the PR tour for her book sales.
> I get that you don't like her
I'm just tired of people abusing the "whistleblower" label for personal profit with little substance. It undermines the importance of real whistleblowers who do actual whistleblowing activities.
That I get. At least shes not grifting like francis haugen. But clearly she wants to affect change, and saw that the only real way to do this is publicly shame the leadership.
> Given that Meta hasn't actually forced her to pay anything for the agreement, this whole "faces bankruptcy" article is starting to feel like another round of the PR tour for her book sales.
I mean yes, but also the implicit threat here is that meta can call in that debt at any time. Which for a company that prides it's self on freedom of expression, its an odd stance. Especially as the book doesn't really contain any secrets.
The voluntary agreement is rarely voluntary, sadly. given the situation of her departure, I can see why she took it. If I were here and not looking like I'd be able to work again, I'd be taking the cash too.
That’s the part they buried. If you’re handed half a million up front, it’s hard to square “bankruptcy” with some kind of noble crusade. The article frames it like she’s sacrificing everything to expose Meta, but it reads more like poor money management than pure altruism. Meta’s behavior might still be heavy-handed, but leaving that payout until halfway down makes the story feel slanted.
Also, at the very top before the article even begins:
> Sarah Wynn-Williams faces $50,000 fine every time she breaches order banning her from criticising Meta
And further down:
> However, the former diplomat was barred from publicising the memoir after Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, secured a ruling preventing her from doing so.
I think it’s fair of me to say that maybe we shouldn’t downplay her situation.
Right - if she had actually gone through the PIDA channels, the courts might treat it differently. But skipping straight to a $500k advance and a commercial book makes it harder to see this as whistleblowing. Truth or not, it looks less like a principled disclosure and more like monetizing criticism of Meta.
There is nothing wrong with making money writing a tell-all so far as the work is rigorous and truthful. Attacking her for profiting is a cheap way to discredit her without having to assess the merits of her work.
Yes it’s valid to critique the source and see where funding is coming from, that’s important information, but discrediting someone out the gate for making money on something is simply lazy and requires no critical assessment at all.
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/whistleblower-pro...
Then we shouldn’t assert that it matters. I’m glad we agreed ultimately it doesn’t, but I just want to be very clear there.
The half-million advance does not mean she can’t be going bankrupt. As I said, it’s not exactly lottery money, especially when 10% of that is at risk for every offense she’s up for, and she is struggling to get the rest of her money the book would net because of their blocking it. You’re ignoring a ton of context and overstating how much 500k should solve her financial woes.
Also, it’s not “buried,” it’s in the article clear as day. You just think it should be the first thing stated.
Frankly I’m not sure what your aim is here. You’re being wildly charitable to Facebook here, whereas I would think we should start on her side until we see reason not to be.
I get what you’re saying, but my point is different. It’s not about rooting for Meta, it’s about how every story gets framed as righteous activism. After a while it feels performative more than principled. I don’t think noticing that makes me “pro-Facebook,” it just means I’m tired of the constant activist spin that leaves out key context.
You have no reason to not accept this article at face value yet you seem to be trying awfully hard to find reasons to be cynical and spread doubt.
It is about noticing when the narrative is doing extra work.
What does making a living have to do with capitalism? What a strange thing to say.
We don’t have a system that provides for that unless you’re incredibly privileged/financially set already.
I do not understand where your objection is coming from.
I would expect someone motivated by the truth to put this out on a blog or podcast for free.
She was still dismissed and ignored.
Zhang wasn't ignored. She made a huge fucking impact internally. The problem is the department that she was trying to affect change is run by a bastard.
Edit: I am responding to the critique of a different person. I did read the article.
Say a company operated a short-form video platform, did active research about its effects, knew a large chunk of its user-base were children younger than 6 and knew that the video selection algorithm caused addiction but kept serving then addictive videos because getting the ad money was profitable.
Was any law broken? Should society know all of this?
This is how abuse is addressed and society is protected. Not by choosing to get a severance package, reneging on the contract, seeking a book deal and then crying 'woe be me' on The Guardian.
PS. I cannot help but notice two things: 1. The sort of people Meta seems to attract. 2. The fact that both you and I are creating online noise and sentiment which will probably help Sarah sell more books (or get another, better deal from Meta). It's better to get away from the computer now.
Laws are passed by politicians, not society. And the more removed they are from actual working people, the more different their incentives are. You and I as members of society have very little actual control over what gets passed.
On any given issue, there's something between 0 and 30% of the population who actually care.
- Immigration? Maybe 30% cares, the rest doesn't.
- Gay marriage? Maybe 10%, idk really.
- Whether training an ML model is derivative work? Right now, I'd guess close to 1%, hopefully it'll go up.
- Whether online services should disclose evidence of causing addiction? I bet that's maybe 2% now.
- Trans rights? Depending on country, it's between 0 and, say, 10%. This issue is massively hyped up by people who benefit from dividing the population to distract them from other issues. No, seriously, most people should have no need to dictate other people's lives, but frame is as an attack on moral values and you get supporters.
The issue with democracy is that you don't vote on issues, you vote for parties. And even if you live in a democracy which isn't totally broken by degenerating into 2 parties, there are still way fewer parties than combinations of issues. So you can't express your view in any meaningful way.
It's like describing a precise point in N-dimensional space (your entire opinion) by picking 1 of a dozen predefined points. When you realize this, you realize how incredibly dumb is it.
Actually, WE might. But my mom wouldn't.
now you are liable on your own, without any of the backing of a large publisher with specialist lawyers on staff. Plus it'd go nowhere and be taken down almost instantly by facebook.
The audiobook is narrated by the author, which adds an extra dimension to the story.
Would highly recommend.
Would recommend anyway.
It's a good book, everyone should read it.
It's not terribly insightful to recognize that the publishers are trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Careless people, indeed.
I think it is a real eye-opener.
Meta and the likes don't need to care anymore.
What evidence is there, that this admin would be doing anything to push against or stop non competes?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/trump-administratio...
Who's really going to go after a mega corp-entity when they do $bad? "Whistle Blower" is like an oxymoron to that the likes of "Friendly Fire".
More and more corporations are resorting to the predatory practice of abusing the court system to protect their hide their actions. You may accept this kind of thing, I do not.
When corporations can lobby to influence legislation, pay to get a candidate elected, and CEOs hold positions of power, including the presidency itself, any semblance of democracy is an illusion.
The billionaires are far less numerous, have far better ability to coordinate and summon resources, and have interests that diverge farther from the thousandaires who actually do most of the voting, compared to the millionaires.
The Democrats are a bit less enthusiastic, at least at the moment, but in the end it's not the millionaires who pull the levers. It's the rank and file.
It's hard to tell how different it would be if we could somehow get the money out of it. But I am wary of assuming that the voters would dramatically change their attitudes. The millionaires and billionaires tune the party's message to what the voters want. They get the spoils but they're also making their voters happy, assuming they win. If they didn't do that, they'd lose.
It's possible that the Democrats are more conspicuously failing to give their voters what they want when they win. But it's not obvious to me how they could do that. Most of the suggestions I hear are naive and impractical, and come down to "do the thing I want and many millions of others will see how great that is."
You won't find a single person who does this.
Apparently everyone votes by a different mechanism. One that involves a lot of money.
Even if everyone was well informed and able to objectively make their own choices that are truly their own. You don't actually have to do anything you wrote in your election program.
If we would magically spawn the theoretically ideal candidate who plans to do everything exactly the way you want it done then there is zero chance you will vote for them.
This goes for all voters. Exactly 100% of them without rounding anything.
https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/president/?election_year...
You can't argue you don't need to know any of them because they aren't popular enough.
Democracy badly needs a better formula for discovery or some other means to add signal to the noise like a license to drive the country or some financial reward to get a diploma.
Maybe we could train an LLM to interview the voter.
“People can vote whichever side they prefer, as long as their opinions are based on fake news.” It's difficult to talk about rank and file pulling the levers, when millionaires manufacture the news.
It's not that hard. People seek out the fake news; the millionaires and billionaires are just providing slightly better versions of it. They could be doing really sophisticated propaganda but they just don't have to. People are pleased to believe the most outlandish lies if it affirms their egos.
Exactly the same model for pretty much all large countries, each with a bit of different "flavour" that the elites learned throughout the centuries, and conveniently serves as one of the topics to divide the human resources.
"Corporates" are the leaders of the many large corporations in this country. They want broad protections for corporate power against labour, corporate profits, lowered regulations, etc.
"Oligarchs" are the leaders of the few titanic corporations, like Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg. They want to become the zaibatsu of modern America, essentially being given total control over the economy divided up between them.
There are many things they want that are in common (for instance, the removal of regulations), but that prime desire of the oligarchs is directly at odds with the continued existence and livelihoods of the corporates.
Augustus seized all the levers of power to create the Roman Empire and even developed a cult-like following.
Similarly, claiming there aren't two political camps is sloppy in the current environment.
Corporates and oligarchs are a completely different animal, and they deserve treatment as such.
They are not some homogenous, totalitarian entity: they're more akin to what Rome was before the Empire--a melange of senators fighting about everything while trying to stay rich.
Octavian was given the levers of power by Julius Caesar. Pompey and Crassus teamed up with Caesar to breakdown the republic. They made huge amounts of cash doing it.
Can we all please stop calling ideas “harmful” or “dangerous” and just have plain, open debate? That’s what a republic depends on.
There. That’s an idea you can debate.
From my perspective, it’s self evident that our political institutions are hopelessly corrupt, so I can’t imagine what it’s like to have faith in them. And since I’ve lost faith in our institutions, I see criticism as positive, not negative.
I don’t see how pointing out flaws is self fulfilling. It’s the only way to improve anything. My guess is that an internet comment has less effect than the wishes of billionaires who are able to control our political institutions using their economic power.
If you admit that our political institutions are in a bad state, how do you propose we begin to fix them without voicing negativity about them?
I think the department of education does good work and has been critical in creating an education system that people from all over the globe strive to access. From school lunch programs that support local farmers and provide nutritious meals to students to stewarding our world-class universities.
I think USAID did a great job minimizing suffering in-situ, thus reducing refugee crises and allowing populations to flourish to the benefit of everyone.
I think the IRS was doing great work developing their own e-file system that gives US taxpayers an alternative to predatory commercial options like TurboTax.
When you say “political institutions” I assume you mean congress, which is undisputedly democratically elected. You can engage with your elected leaders to effect change. People do so all the time. You can get involved in the political process and get someone more aligned with your interests elected. This also happens all the time.
So where’s the corruption of our institutions you are so certain exists? If you can’t be specific then I think it is just toxic and lazy to repeat the negativity.
What a totally ridiculous comparison. The roman empire always was an explicit a dictatorial state. Its end took hundreds of years of internal and external forces tearing it apart as coherent entity. Characterizing it as two factions fighting for power is just bizarre.
Are you sure he didn’t mean the end of the Roman Republic, which was the beginning of the Principate? The Western Empire would last about another 400 years.
We definitely are tracking the end of the Roman Republic. At that point, all constitutional norms had been violated so many times that they were mere suggestions, and political infighting by oligarchs was tearing the republic apart, to the point that people were relieved when Augustus took power. They still had a senate. They still had all the old offices and structures. But everyone knew who was in power.
Much like today in the US. We don’t have one Princeps, but we all know that the oligarchs and corporations own the entire political and economic process. They write the rules to suit themselves.
And they have common people fighting each other over cultural issues instead of fighting them for the stuff that matters — economic and political power. It’s a fantastic divide and conquer strategy. Unless common people start waking up to who their real enemies are, the American Republic is effectively over.
I don’t see any way to view today’s politics as normal. There is nothing but naked greed and hunger for power at play now. It wasn’t like this even 15 years ago. We’ve been a frog in a pot of water and it’s just starting to boil.
> she is being pushed to financial ruin through the arbitration system in the UK,
Not the US.
The initial primary focus is Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who is known as the father of public relations. He was incredibly influential during his time, having been a key advisor on most federal administrations from the 20s to the 70s. On the corporate side, early big wins were getting women to smoke at the dawn of the Great Depression, and changing the 'American breakfast' to bacon and eggs.
A core thesis of his is freedom in a large democratic state is a bit of an illusion… it needs to be controlled by consumerist impulses, or in other words, indirectly by corporations. Otherwise the all-encompassing hand of totalitarianism is needed. Without one of these mediating factors, the masses become unruly and descend into anarchy and chaos.
His late 20s book "Propaganda" is an interesting insight into his early, free from public scorn, view on the matter. It seems overwhelmingly cynical and puppet-masterish, if you will, and he somewhat stepped back from it after finding out how much it had influenced Goebbels. Still, I think it holds strongly as a guidebook for how the US evolved to present day.
>Requiring non-disclosure in order to get a severance (or to get a settlement for abuse) is not an excuse for doing this.
This seems very reasonable? If you want to attack your employer you are free to do so, why should they pay you for that?
>More and more corporations are resorting to the predatory practice of abusing the court system to protect their hide their actions.
What are you on about? Companies have always tried to get what they can, it is not some recent trend that companies go after their own (former) employees in court.
The two issues I see here are: NDAs without a public-good exception and forced confidential arbitration.
I think there should always be an exception to NDAs when the information is in the public good. I think it’s reasonable to disagree on where that line should be; that’s what legislation and court cases are for.
Also, forcing the resolution of this to go through confidential arbitration hides the issues from the public, and doesn’t let us make good decisions on where that line should be.
AFAIK that already sort of exists because NDAs doesn't cover you if you're subpoenaed, like if there was a congressional hearing.
Congress could have sought her testimony before the book and legal battle became news. They did not.
> I agree having it in book form is more convenient, but it's not like if Zuckerberg burned down an orphanage and he got the only witness to sign a NDA he would get away with it.
Pretending to agree with a weak claim I didn't make is a sign of bad faith. And do you believe public interest is limited to atrocities?
She wrote the book after she left. So, is it OK for someone to expose a company for illicit and illegal activities in this regard? And if not then why is it OK for these companies to use illicit or illegal tactics to silence former, or even, current employees?
As discussed umpteenth times in every free speech debate ever, "free speech" as enshrined in the legal system only offers protection from the government. There's a broader principle of free speech in general, but it's unclear whether that should be applicable in this case, where two private entities entered into an agreement where one side agreed to cease speech in exchange for money.
Define "abuse"? Is it just because Meta is a trillion dollar company? Or that they offered a huge amount? Does that mean the courts should refuse to enforce any sort of agreement between Meta and any individual? If meta decides to offer me (no prior relationship to them) 50k to stop talking shit about them, and I accepted, am I being "abused"? What if I'm a vocal critic? Would that be abuse?
not any, but those which cover potential crimes.
that authority could be birded by corp and report will go nowhere.
> You just can't monetize your past employment in the form of a 500k book deal.
sure, its reasonable to have non-monetization clause in contract, but it is unreasonable to have blanket statements to not ever talk about events during employments under any circumstances, which likely included into NDA.
The wikipedia article says facebook tried to appease chinese censors. That's bad, but so far as I can tell, isn't illegal under US or UK law. Microsoft complies with chinese censor demands for bing and they seem to be doing fine, for instance. The only plausible case for "they're breaking laws" is them breaking the UDHR, but that's an unenforceable document that's not worth the paper it's printed on.
Speaking personally, the moment I knew that Zuckerberg knew nothing about politics was circa 2010, when he announced his plan to join forces with Chris Christie to "fix Newark schools". I don't care if you support team red or team blue, but it was obvious to anyone who knew politics at that time that Christie was a con artist. Why waste any amount of time and money on this project destined to fail? If Zuck had any insight and had a goal to do an actual thing and see it work, he would not have. He spent $100 million on that.
There are a number of possible interpretations. One is that he was incapable of researching how stupid he was being in that moment. Another is that he didn't care about that and he did it only to improve his image. Few of the interpretations I can think of have him looking great.
Porque no los dos?
that expression is carrying a lot of water these days. Although libel laws in England are pretty tyrannical in a different way than the current rise of fascism and attempts to use government to hush dissent against the Trump regime . The current FCC chairman and Pam Bondi are trying to silence critics of Trump, VP is saying that trans people speaking out should be committed to insane asylums
Aren't a vast majority of large corporations inherently undemocratic? They all seem to be organized much more like authoritarian dystopias, with power held by a shadowy cabal (the board), then a king-like figure (CEO), with a court (all the C-levels), then trickling down to a coterie of lesser magnates, viceroys and dukes of all sorts (middle management), all the way down to vassals and peons who do what they are told.
There is no democratic process in a corporation, everything is dictated top down. There's the Stasi / secret police / CIA (HR) who spy on everyone and root out then shut down dissent. Every decision is subservient to the Mission, the Vision, etc. They unironically have Five Year Plans.
If you take some distance and look at it, corporations are awfully undemocratic. I think it follows they would be anti-democratic when it comes to things outside of their immediate boundaries; to have that power and want it extended beyond, for your advantage, that's inevitable.
If you're not allowed to criticize a person, you're in a cult. If you're not allowed to criticize the government, that's authoritarianism.
Being able to speak freely is supposed to be one of our core values, and when a business asks someone to forfeit that right, it's a sign there's something seriously wrong. You don't require someone to never speak ill of you unless you're planning on doing something they might speak ill about.
By my moral compass, the very act of requiring someone to never publicly say anything bad about you is itself unethical. It's psychopathic behavior, not something that should be normalized.
The clincher was when a colleague I worked with in a previous job joined Meta, and went from a fun and interesting person, to creepy and weird. As if he has joined a cult. Then a family member did the same -- the effect was subtle... their political opinions turned distinctly sinister -- like they'd downloaded the inherently un-egalitarian, anti-Western and anti-progress ideology of the founder into their own heads.
I've seen the same cult-like effect of Amazon on people. Literally 'selling' the idea of Jeff Bezos, and flogging his book like their company were some kind of dark techno Amway.
The FAANGs are NOT nice people, and I want nothing to do with them.
I got offered a small severance after a recent layoff. Severance agreement contained a non-disparagement clause. I didn't sign. You don't get corporate goons coming to your house to threaten you if you don't sign your severance/termination agreement.
Option 1: take the severance package/non-disparagement agreement and decline the $500k book deal focused on disparaging facebook
Option 2: decline the severance and take the $500k book deal.
Actually its not. its just facebook doesn't enforce it. There is a difference between leaving voluntarily, and being given n months wage.
The agreement _must_ be kept secret from everyone apart from your designated spouse and legal representative.
The only thing you are allowed to talk about in relation to meta is that you worked for them, and the dates.
You cannot, using any written or recorded medium give an opinion about meta, its products, employees past and present, positive or otherwise, without prior written agreement.
In return facebook promises not to disparage you, and pays a peppercorn to guarantee that.
the only difference between the pleb agreements and hers is that pleb agreements are only liable for the money that they paid you, (ie 3-9 months wage, but that could also be country agreement)
So everyone of those 40k employees that have been fired in the last 2 years will have been "offered" one of those contracts.
They serve no purpose, other than protecting abusive and exploitative companies.
If a disgruntled employee says something that is not true, there are already laws the company can use to defend itself and the company has way more resources than an individual. That's enough to deter even people who want to expose the truth but are not confident they can prove it. These clauses just make the power differential even larger.
The author thought the people she was working for were Really Special People and that by extension she was a Really Special Person. She gets very upset when she sees that are just Ordinary People and that by extension she is just an Ordinary Person as well.
And how could she be just an Ordinary Person and so sad/stressed at the same time?
That said, the author doesn't come off particularly well, either. In her effort to excuse herself for working for Meta's leaders willingly for so long, she comes off as a painfully naive workaholic who ignores the welfare of her husband, children, friends, family, and even her own body in order to serve the whims of executives who will never care for her. Reading stories about how she, her colleagues, and even world leaders are repeatedly debased and devalued in order to please people like Mark Zuckerberg and Sherly Sandberg is deeply sad.
She doesn't deserve what's being done to her but it's hard to see how it is unpredictable.
"I did this willingly and now realize it was awful" would have been much more noble than "oh, lol, i didn't know they sucked, woopsie", but she mostly went with the latter.
> In her effort to excuse herself for working for Meta's leaders willingly for so long
Its an easy trap that I think many engineers fall for to varying degrees. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of your work and lose sight of the implications of it. As engineers we build things that have great power. When building them we concentrate on how that power can be used for good. How much we can help the world. But it's easy to ignore how the same construction can be used for great evils. That's why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Few people are truly evil and a sad truth is that evil is mostly created by good men trying to do good.
Maybe the most famous example of this is the scientists who worked on the Manhattan project. Captivated by the exciting challenges of the work and the exhilaration of solving these complex puzzles. Rushed by the war effort, blinding them to what was really being created. That sense of urgency that the bomb would be inevitable; if not them, then someone else. As they got closer to their goal more started to rethink. After Trinity more followed. After Hiroshima many became outspoken critics, including Oppenheimer himself. Many of these men ended up being disgusted with themselves, with how far they could go before they saw the consequences of their actions. Many more performed great acrobatics to justify why the construction was good and justified.
To be honest, it doesn't matter if it was the right decision to make the bomb or not. The real lesson is how easy it is to get lost in the work and blinded by a sense of urgency. It's magnitudes easier to recognize the consequences post hoc rather than a priori. But in most situations these things are even harder to see. We're not omniscient, so it's impossible to imagine all the ways a technology may be abused.
Our duty, especially as engineers, then becomes to make frequent pauses and rethink. Are we doing the right thing? Is there a better way? Is there something we've missed? This doesn't just make us more ethical, it also helps us solve the technical challenges. We're fortunate that this can align.
Since we cannot turn back time, all we can do is accept those who change. To accept that harm cannot be undone, but future harm can be prevented or lessened. The best we can do is recognize that the world is complex and we are blind to so much. I fear if we blame too much this only makes us dig our holes deeper. (Essentially) No one wants to be the harbinger of evil or harm, so we'll go to great lengths to blind ourselves to the damage in our wake. Not because we are evil, but because we want to be good.
It’s such a mind bending story and point in human history. I digress..
That story is wildly overblown. No one really thought this would happen. But given the consequences of being wrong no one wanted to trust themselves. So what they did is keep asking each other to try to do the calculations independently and see if they would get the same results. The idea came from Teller who was researching stars, which do have a runaway reaction. In the movie Oppenheimer says "nonzero chance" and that's accurate. He really did mean "we aren't confident that this would get impossible" but they were very confident the likelihood was almost zero.
The reason this it's important is because it flips the story on its head. Had they thought there was a meaningful chance and moved forward then the story represents how brash they were and careless. But instead it is a story of where they were considering and taking seriously something they thought was a near impossibility and yet they took great effort to ensure that it was actually impossible. That's now a story of how careful they were. It's the exact opposite of being brash.
Mind you, this doesn't contradict what I said before. They did know the bomb would be powerful, but I doubt many knew how powerful until near or at Trinity. And I'll tell you, unless you can do the calculations then you really don't understand what those things actually do. It is so much more than an explosion. It is more than the radiation. There's a reason so many could no longer be blind to the consequences. To this day the skeletons are out of the physicists' closet because we all know we are capable of unknowingly following the same path. When you learn what that bomb does you hope you're at the center of it
Any good books or documentaries you recommend?
The stories have the same vibe to me.
cap11235•4mo ago
> Meta said that to date, Wynn-Williams had not been forced to make any payments under the agreement.
Unless the reporter and MP are willing to show that Meta is lying about that (which presumably can be easily shown by the book's author producing communications), looks like they are trying to imply causation by the framing of the article.
KaiserPro•4mo ago
> Meta said that to date, Wynn-Williams had not been forced to make any payments under the agreement.
which is not the same as "Wynn-Williams" is not liable for any damages. Meta is not going to let someone public claim that meta can make them bankrupt, if it wasn't true. Its bad PR.
Its clear that meta has the power to claim breech of contract, but they are choosing _not_ to at this time. I assume in order to force a stop of book being sold.