After publishing a memoir last year about her time as an executive at Meta, whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams is suing the company, saying they’ve taken extreme measures to silence her, and she claims the gag order she signed is invalid.
Former Meta executive and whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of trying to silence her following the release of her memoir Careless People last year, as the Associated Press reports. In the book, Wynn-Williams describes CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives as fostering a toxic workplace culture and alleges Zuckerberg went to extraordinary lengths to curry favor with Chinese officials.
According to the Guardian, Wynn-Williams is asking a federal court in California to throw out both the arbitration order and the severance agreement she signed after being fired by Facebook in 2017. Her lawsuit argues she accepted the agreement under financial pressure because losing her job also meant losing critical benefits and income.
Meta reportedly obtained an emergency arbitration order earlier this year barring Wynn-Williams from promoting or publicly criticizing the company, claiming she violated non-disparagement provisions in her severance agreement. The AP reports that Meta is seeking $50,000 each time it believes she violates those terms.
Wynn-Williams’ suit also reportedly accuses Meta of conducting "coercive surveillance," alleging company representatives have attended Wynn-Williams's public appearances for more than a year, photographing and documenting events even when she said nothing about either Meta or her book. The complaint says Meta even objected to her appearance at the Hay literary festival in Wales, where she sat on a panel alongside critics of the company but remained silent on legal advice.
"Meta is pursuing Ms. Wynn-Williams at the expense of free speech," the lawsuit states.
Meta pushed back in a statement, saying its former employee is attempting to "use the legal process to sell books" after an arbitrator already determined she had violated the agreement she signed in exchange for a "large severance payment." The company also maintains that Careless People contains false and misleading claims about executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Related: Mass Layoffs at Meta Begin With 8,000 Let Go; 6,000 Roles Frozen
Image: Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, arrives to testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
