By Glenn Chapman, AFP
Author Sarah Wynn Williams. Photo: Supplied
A scathing book about Facebook parent company Meta, whose Kiwi author has been barred from promoting her work, has entered at the top of the New York Times bestseller list after its first week of release in the United States.
The book also ranks fourth on Amazon's bestseller list, the platform showed on Thursday (local time).
In Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism, which was released on 11 March, New Zealander Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.
Wynn-Williams's book includes claims of sexual harassment by longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta's global affairs team this year.
She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative Chinese market by appeasing government censors there.
Meta quickly took the matter to arbitration, contending the book violates a non-disparagement contract signed by Wynn-Williams when she worked with the company's global affairs team.
Sarah Wynn-Williams talks to the News Agents podcast in the UK, before Meta took legal action to prevent her speaking about her lid-lifting book about Facebook. Photo: screenshot / YouTube
An arbitration court granted Meta's request to bar Wynn-Williams from promoting the book or making derogatory statements about the company.
She also must retract previous critical comments about Meta or its executives, according to the ruling, which remains in place until the dispute is settled in the private arbitration process.
"This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams' false and defamatory book should never have been published," Meta communications director Andy Stone said at the time in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Stone said Wynn-Williams was "fired for poor performance and toxic behaviour," having made a series of unfounded allegations that the company investigated.
Another book that is highly critical of Meta, The Anxious Generation, which paints a dark picture of social media's effect on children, is currently fourth on the Times best-seller list a year after its release.
-AFP
