Book Review by K.S. Loganathan
Sarah Wynn- Williams is a New Zealand born lawyer and a former director of Facebook’s global public policy between 2011 and 2017. In her book, she gives a detailed account of the founder Mark Zuckerberg , Sheryl Sandberg and other people who ran Facebook and took it all over the world : their characters, intentions and actions. Although many of the incidents and Congressional hearings of the events are already in the public domain, it is the first connected account of the company’s doings from a whistle-blower at the top echelons of Facebook ( now Meta).
Since its release in March 2025, the book has climbed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Mark Zuckerberg succeeded in getting the author banned from promoting her book and writing or speaking about Meta employees by appealing to the American Arbitration Association. No action was ordered by the authority on the U.K. publisher Macmillan, however and the book continues to be available.
Wynn- Williams portrays Mark and Sheryl as the Careless People, post- modern C-suite Tom and Daisy Gatsby characters whose public images bore no resemblance to their actual selves. They prioritize shareholder value and flaunt their personal power and flout ethical business practices at a time when Facebook is growing into a formidable data gathering and social influencing platform worldwide. In the second half of the book the negative consequences of such actions are described.
Facebook ultimately controls the “voice” of politicians aspiring for power, swings voting outcomes by disseminating half- truths and cozies up to authoritarian regimes in places as distant as Indonesia and the Phillipines . It bends or ignores the rules in a borderless internet world as it collaborates with China , sharing customer information ,building facial recognition and other tools to facilitate Chinese surveillance and censorship that helps the Chinese crack down on dissidents. It targets teenagers and insecure individuals by advertising products at specific times when they are psychologically vulnerable through algorithms to bring in advertising revenues .Governments get worried about Facebook’s unbridled power in influencing voters, radicalizing terrorists, proliferating hate speech and creating civil disturbances.
On India, the Telecommunication Authority of India ban on Internet.org( Free Basics) in 2016 is described. A passing reference to Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the U.S. is also made. There is however no mention of ethnic tensions being inflamed in the North – East following biased Facebook posts.The Rohingya refugee crisis is well covered.
Wynn-Williams had been attacked by a shark as a teenager while swimming in Christchurch. In Facebook, her role gnaws at her peace of mind but she struggles on as she cannot quit the job ” because I need the health insurance”,stock allotments and so on. Ultimately she is asked to go .She now works on tech policy as a consultant in her private capacity .
Meta is now at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence, a technology that is even more potent than Facebook. An insider account of this type sheds light on Big Tech and those who control it .It is an easy and chatty read, with no references, footnotes or an index. A timely warning of the consequences of the interplay of misuse of technology, money and power.
