{"id":615320,"date":"2026-06-01T13:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615320\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:58:09","slug":"meta-whistleblowers-lawyer-says-he-too-is-prevented-from-promoting-her-book-meta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615320\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta whistleblower\u2019s lawyer says he too is prevented from promoting her book | Meta"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lawyer representing the Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams has said he too has been prevented from promoting her memoir under a legal ruling, after her silent appearance at the Hay festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ravi Naik said the terms of an arbitration proceeding<\/a> meant neither Wynn-Williams nor her \u201cagents\u201d could promote her bestselling book Careless People or say anything disparaging about the company.<\/p>\n

Naik spoke after Wynn-Williams was forced to sit in silence<\/a> during an appearance at Hay on Sunday owing to the terms of the ruling. Naik said an interim arbitration ruling meant she risked being forced to pay \u201cpunitive\u201d damages if he promoted the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever in my life have I faced a circumstance where my client cannot speak about her truth and I as a lawyer cannot speak on behalf of my client,\u201d he told BBC Radio\u2019s Today programme on Monday.<\/p>\n

Meta has claimed the book<\/a>, which made a series of claims about the social media company\u2019s behaviour and culture, is false and defamatory. It also contained allegations of sexual harassment that were denied by the company. Meta says Wynn-Williams was fired for \u201cpoor performance and toxic behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n

Naik said Meta\u2019s stance on Wynn-Williams\u2019s Hay appearance was not a \u201chypothetical threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta had said in writing that they considered Wynn-Williams\u2019s attendance at the Hay talk would be a \u201cbreach\u201d of the interim arbitration award, according to Naik, and they would seek sanctions if she promoted the book or criticised Meta in her appearance. Nail said Meta would probably seek to uphold the arbitration award, handed down in California, through the British courts.<\/p>\n

Wynn-Williams was due to appear on stage in conversation with the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and the academic Tim Wu but spent the scheduled hour sitting in front of the audience without speaking. She was also unable to nod or shake her head.<\/p>\n

Introducing the panel, Cadwalladr said: \u201cI think this might be a Hay first, in which we have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if [Mark] Zuckerberg is an asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n

In testimony before a Senate judiciary subcommittee last year, Wynn-Williams alleged Meta worked \u201chand in glove\u201d with China over censorship tools \u2013 something the company has denied.<\/p>\n

The Republican senator Josh Hawley claimed at the hearing that Wynn-Williams had been threatened with a fine of $50,000 (\u00a337,000) every time she mentioned Facebook in public. However, the BBC reported that, according to Meta<\/a>, she faced paying those damages for each violation of the separation agreement that she signed when she left the company in 2017.<\/p>\n

The Labour MP Louse Haigh claimed last year<\/a> that Wynn-Williams was being \u201cpushed to financial ruin\u201d by Meta\u2019s legal stance.<\/p>\n

Meta declined to comment directly on Wynn-William\u2019s Hay appearance. It has previously described Careless People as a \u201cmix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lawyer representing the Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams has said he too has been prevented from promoting her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-615320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}