Book review: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Great Gatsby quote has it. “They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...” 

Swap Thomas and Daisy Buchanan for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Meta's CEO and former COO, and you’re getting to the heart of Sarah Wynn-Williams' scathing, darkly humorous exposé, Careless People – a chilling portrayal of unchecked corporate power. 

As Wynn-Williams, the former high-ranking employee-turned-whistleblower argues, Zuckerberg and Sandberg, driven by self-interest and hubris (with Zuckerberg’s leadership dubbed an "autocracy of one"), left a trail of destruction far worse than their fictional Roaring Twenties counterparts. Far from being ‘straight-shooters,’ they presided over a company more focused on profit and unchecked power than on genuine altruism, “callously indifferent to the price others would pay for their own enrichment” as the Sunday Times puts it. 

Simply, if you’ve ever wondered how such an idealistic platform designed to connect friends and family became such a gigantic Trojan horse for disinformation, hate speech, and collusion with authoritarian regimes, Careless People provides the unvarnished answers. 

Wynn-Williams’s revelations 

The book, which chronicles Wynn-Williams’s seven years at Facebook (now Meta), plunges us into the roiling guts of its corporate culture, revealing its leadership tactics, and rather startling approach to global crises. Among the most damning revelations: Meta's role in the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar – Wynn-Williams recounts how Facebook's failure to address hate speech and violent rhetoric on the platform led to the atrocities that unfolded. 

She also explores Facebook’s role in the 2016 US election, whereby Facebook employees embedded within the Trump campaign helped craft a highly effective, and deeply divisive misinformation strategy, targeting vulnerable voters with inflammatory content, and thus influencing the election outcome in unprecedented ways. (Naturally, despite having publicly criticised him in the past, Zuckerberg was an honoured guest at Trump’s 2025 inauguration.) 

Allegations 

Then there’s Facebook’s collusion with authoritarian regimes, China in particular. Despite Facebook’s purported mission to make the world more open and connected, Zuckerberg sought to curry favour with the Chinese government by offering censorship tools – even agreeing to provide user data in exchange for access to the market, while concealing those efforts from Congress. In short, securing a slice of China’s massive user base by betraying its ‘Free Speech’ principles.

Speaking of which Wynn-Williams paints a bleak picture of the culture at Facebook, arguing that Sandberg's "Lean In" philosophy was a corporate ploy to get people to work longer hours, and accusing one senior executive of sexual harassment.

Meta’s denial 

Naturally, Meta has hotly denied the allegations, calling Wynn-Williams an “anti-Facebook activist” and labelling her accusations as false or at the very least outdated. Further, Meta has attempted to prevent her publicising the memoir and even block further sales, invoking a non-disparagement clause from Wynn-Williams's severance agreement. Students of the Streisand Effect – whereby attempts to suppress information only draw more public interest to it – may be interested to note that as a result, the book has rocketed up the bestseller lists. 

At the start of 2025, Meta announced plans to end its third-party fact-checking program, and ‘restore free speech’. Under Trump, said Zuckerberg, there was “the opportunity to restore free expression”.  

It all seems an awfully long way from 2012, when Zuckerberg wrote, "There is a huge need and a huge opportunity… to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future." Not even Tom and Daisy claimed they wanted to do that. 

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams is out now published by Pan Macmillan

Ali Catterall is an award-winning writer, journalist and filmmaker whose writing has featured in the Guardian, Time Out, GQ, Film4, Word magazine and the Big Issue, among many others. Ali is also the writer and director of the 2023 film Scala!!!

Further reading 

Navigating disinformation: pressures and opportunities in PR 
Social media: are we at the end of the age of trending? 
How hate spreads – the real-world impacts from disinformation