Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

How Facebook lost its conscience, and how the young man at its helm grew to love the taste of power
A WORD ABOUT THIS PLATFORM THAT CONNECTS USCareless People by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsThis riveting memoir about the maturation of Facebook is fascinating in large part because of the direct access the author had for over six years to the highest levels of leadership at the company. Its title comes from The Great Gatsby, where narrator Nick Carraway says, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money.”A former New Zealand diplomat, Wynn-Williams had to pitch her own job to Facebook in 2011, as Zuckerberg and other senior leaders had no clue then about the role Facebook was destined to play in global politics. Rising to the position of Director of Global Public Policy, Wynn-Williams had a front-row seat to decisions that would irrevocably alter the political landscape in the US and around the world.Fast forward to the 2016 presidential election and the author’s account of how Facebook’s microtargeting of users, its allowance of misinformation on the site, and its assignment of staff to work hand in glove with the Trump campaign as they utilized these ethically compromised tactics turned the tide in that election, and set the stage for the wrecking ball now swinging in our halls of government. You could say Careless People is the story of how Facebook lost its conscience, and how the curious and impressionable young man at its helm grew to love the taste of power.The author weaves the story of Facebook’s role in the 2016 election with a number of other narratives, all revealing the same pattern showing how principled concerns were steamrolled by the relentless pursuit of growth, revenue, and influence. See also Cory Doctorow’s engaging review of this book, with its helpful explanation of why continued growth is so important to a company like Facebook. Her account reads like a slow-building tragedy, where you see exactly where the off-ramps were and watch, helplessly, as they pass by one by one:The Rohingya GenocideThis is perhaps the most devastating section of the book. Wynn-Williams argues that Facebook failed to moderate hate speech against the Rohingya in Myanmar, and that the company only had two Burmese language moderators for the entire country. Facebook had also failed to invest in Burmese language support for its automated systems, meaning none of its moderation tools could even parse posts written in Burmese script. Because of these decisions, hate speech and misinformation designed to stoke ethnic and religious division spread like wildfire across the platform, and the genocide that followed is presented as a direct consequence of this reckless neglect.Censorship for ChinaA chilling revelation for anyone who believes in free speech is Facebook’s willingness to compromise its own foundational values in pursuit of access to the Chinese market, which Zuckerberg seems to have perceived as a kind of final frontier and holy grail. Rather than standing firm on the principles of open communication it so publicly champions, Facebook secretly developed what was essentially a bespoke censorship tool designed to win over a Chinese government playing hard to get. If China had decided to allow Facebook through the Great Firewall, this system would have allowed Beijing to suppress content it found politically inconvenient, and would have extended into Hong Kong. One subnarrative in this thread is the lengths to which Zuckerberg went to court President Xi Jinping. He asks him (in Mandarin) to name his firstborn child (Xi declines), and the author includes an entertaining depiction of one-upmanship of Xi over Zuckerberg when the latter seeks unsuccessfully to arrange an impromptu meeting with Xi (since Xi had repeatedly rejected overt requests to meet).Sexual Harassment CultureFor a company that spent years wrapping itself in the language of feminine empowerment and progressive values — most visibly through COO Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” movement — the picture Wynn-Williams paints inside Facebook’s walls is a study in hypocrisy. The book alleges that sexual harassment by senior executives was not only tolerated but effectively shielded from consequences.Monetizing Teenage InsecurityWynn-Williams reveals that Facebook identified teenage girls who had deleted selfies on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and then forwarded their data to companies who used it to target them with beauty products. Let that sink in for a moment. These were young girls navigating the minefield of adolescent insecurity, who made a conscious decision to take their photos down. And rather than respecting that decision, Facebook treated it as a data point to be monetized.Content Moderation as a Political ToolAt the heart of this memoir is the question of how Facebook decides what speech is acceptable and what isn’t, both in the US and across the world. Facebook has spent years presenting its content moderation decisions as principled, values-driven calls — the careful work of a responsible company trying to balance free expression with public safety. However, the author shows, an internal policy established in February 2015 made the actual workings explicit: when governments requested that content be removed, Facebook would only comply if there was a credible threat to block the platform entirely in that particular country or a risk to its own employees. Numerous examples paint a picture of a company that was essentially making it up as it went along — complying with take-down requests when powerful enough governments (such as China) pushed hard enough, and ignoring everyone else.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Most of us have encountered, in one way or another, Facebook’s self-described “Community Standards,” which, the company states, “are written to ensure that everyone’s voice is valued.” “Facebook,” the language continues, “takes great care to craft policies that are inclusive of different views and beliefs- in particular those of people and communities that might otherwise be overlooked or marginalized.” However, the picture the author reveals in Careless People suggests that such language is mostly posturing.Zuckerberg’s Ego and DetachmentOne of the most fascinating and unsettling threads running through the book is the portrait Wynn-Williams paints of Mark Zuckerberg — a man who began as a socially awkward but genuinely curious young idealist and somewhere along the way became something different. One anecdote about Indonesia is comic in its brazenness: Zuckerberg allegedly demanded that Wynn-Williams organize an entirely staged, artificial mob of fans to “gently” swarm him in public, creating the illusion of organic, spontaneous popularity. His staff routinely let him win at board games on his private jet, and he remains oblivious to that fact until the author finally spells it out one day. After the 2016 election, when Obama dresses him down at the APEC summit in Peru about Facebook’s role in swinging the results, he becomes indignant, and instead of recognizing an opportunity for a course correction, he contemplates a run for president himself, instructing his staff to take him on a grassroots tour of the country that includes all the requisite stops for a presidential candidate. Throughout the book, we see a leader increasingly insulated from the consequences of his own decisions, surrounded by people too afraid or too incentivized to speak the truth to his face.What makes the author’s account of this man and his company compelling is that initially she believed in the mission. She was there because she thought Facebook could be a genuine force for good in the world–a way to connect people, a uniquely powerful democratizing force. In that sense she probably stands in for most of us who are here right now because we recognized these same qualities ten or fifteen years ago. But now we feel tremors beneath us and the ground shifting in unsettling ways as we post and scroll and message here. What is this platform becoming? What are our responsibilities to bear witness to that and to respond? I believe this book can help us answer those difficult questions.As a footnote, consider that when the book was published, Meta immediately filed an emergency legal action to prevent Wynn-Williams from publicly promoting it, citing a non-disparagement agreement she signed on leaving the company. The attempt backfired in the way these things tend to: the book reached number one on the New York Times best-seller list, and Wynn-Williams was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate. Meta’s attempts to disparage the author read as transparent and cynical in the face of the credibility she establishes throughout this book. And its efforts to limit her voice have only become additional evidence supporting the story she has told.If you’re looking for a book that explains how we got to the crazy, upside-down world we are living in now — politically, socially, technologically — Careless People is a great place to start.

Once I started reading “Careless People” it was virtually impossible to put down. In all honesty I should have been writing a one-pager for an (awesome) investor who wants to be part of my next company. Reading this book made me realise why my previous company had not been super successful: we cared about data integrity and data privacy, we cared about security , we tried to do things the honest and responsible way, knowing that all of this was not really known in terms of right/wrong at the time we were doing it. At least we tried to do the right thing. Unlike the owners and executives at Facebook (now Meta) who just bumbled along trying to ignore their responsibilities to their global community of members/users. Just playing the game of make more profits, no matter the cost to society/the world/people.”Careless People” is unputtdownable and is a warning of what we will face if we don’t think way more carefully about how AI is deployed in business and government processes and in personal use. The inaction from governments and regulators worldwide has enabled the toxic mess that is Facebook and X. The effects of fake Facebook, once known as Internet.org (a free version of FB that brought internet to countries that couldn’t afford it and which preferenced Facebook apps rather than the full internet where a diversity of views and apps can be found) on the nascent democracy of Myanmar and on the Rohingya people make me cry. I didn’t understand how that situation occurred and now I know – Facebook allowed disinformation and hate to enter the veins of a society that didn’t have tools to counter the effects. Shame Facebook, shame. And yes, I’ll be deleting my Facebook account.

This is the sort of book that opens your eyes to what’s behind your day to day and apparently inoffensive use of social media tools like FB. The extent to which the leadership of FB, starting with Mark Zuckerberg, but also Sheryl Sandberg and beyond, has ignored the political implications of developing and sharing FB’s algorithms and user data is shocking… A tale of greed and lack of moral compass. In their quest to make FB global and line pockets at the same time, FB has been used to sway elections in the US, facilitate censorship in China and promote hate crimes against Muslims in Myanmar. I’d heard about this in the press, but hadn’t really understood it till now. Sarah Wynn-Williams role in all of this is questionable, but her bravery in denouncing what takes place in FB is commendable. This book is sometimes hard to read but compelling at the same time, I highly recommend it.

This is an insider expose of how social media companies control the information channels for young people.