Audience members at a renowned book festival in Wales experienced one of the more unusual author discussions ever. Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams spent an hour on stage at the Hay Festival without uttering a word, after lawyers warned that speaking could violate an emergency legal order obtained by Facebook parent company Meta, reports the Guardian. She couldn't even nod as journalist Carole Cadwalladr and scholar Tim Wu discussed her bestselling memoir, Careless People, which alleges troubling internal practices at the company. Meta disputes the claims in the book and obtained the legal order preventing her from discussing certain parts of it, at a potential penalty of $50,000 per violation.
Cadwalladr likened the setup to a "hostage situation," while Wu called it "censorship" and compared the company's conduct to that of powerful states. Hay Festival pulled Wynn-Williams' book from sale during the event to avoid further legal trouble. Wynn-Williams, a Facebook executive from 2011 to 2017, received a standing ovation that left her in tears as the session ended.
At
Mashable, Amanda Yeo writes that "her silence was arguably more effective than any words she might have said." A Meta spokesperson, however, pushed back against the criticism. "This is an arbitrator's order, not Meta deciding to silence anyone," said a company statement, per the
BBC. "We are entitled to ask that the terms of that order be observed."
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