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A New Zealander who spent more than six years inside Facebook’s leadership team has made explosive claims about the company’s inner workings, in a new memoir that Meta is now trying to block.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, who served as Facebook’s director of global public policy from 2011, is one of the most senior executives from the social media giant to go public with allegations about its practices.
In an interview with Australia’s 60 Minutes, aired by Channel 9, she accused the company of prioritising profits over people, enabling harmful content, and working with authoritarian governments in pursuit of global expansion.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has denied her allegations, saying the book has out-of-date claims and false accusations.
Wynn-Williams’ memoir has hit the top of best-seller lists, despite Meta successfully taking legal action to stop further interviews and restrict the book’s distribution as they say she has breached a non-disparagement agreement.
Speaking to 60 Minutes, Wynn-Williams claimed the company had developed tools to detect when teenage users felt “worthless or helpless” and then used that information to target them with beauty ads. “That makes me feel sick,” she said.
She also alleged that few senior executives allowed their own children to use Facebook’s platforms. “That really surprised me,” she said. “It tells me they know.”
Meta says it does not offer tools that allow advertisers to target people based on their emotional state, and strongly denies the claims made in the book.
In her interview, Wynn-Williams said Facebook failed to act on hate speech, ignored warnings about misinformation, and silenced internal voices that raised concerns.
She also claimed CEO Mark Zuckerberg was “desperate” to expand the company into China, and was willing to meet the demands of the Chinese Communist Party to make it happen.
“They were prepared to work hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party,” she said, “building a censorship tool to remove content the regime didn’t like.”
Meta responded that it never reached an agreement in China, does not operate there today, and continues to face restrictions in that market.
In her book and the 60 Minutes interview, Wynn-Williams also accused Zuckerberg of failing to grasp the political power he had created. “I couldn’t understand how someone could invent the greatest political tool of our time and not know they’d done it,” she said.
Wynn-Williams was fired from Facebook in 2017 after accusing a senior executive of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour. She said she was punished for speaking out.
Meta said “an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment”. The company said she was dismissed due to poor performance and toxic behaviour, and refer to her as a disgruntled activist trying to sell books.
In a statement during the 60 Minutes broadcast, Meta said Wynn-Williams had breached the agreement she made when she left the company and was attempting to “drag up old news".
The company added it has invested over US$20 billion into safety and security since 2016 and has developed one of the most advanced content moderation systems in the world.
Wynn-Williams said Meta’s recent legal action is an attempt to silence her.
“I think it’s really disappointing but not surprising that Meta is trying to smear me rather than deal with questions of accountability for the damage and harm it’s done,” she told 60 Minutes.
She is now working in artificial intelligence and said her goal is to ensure companies like Meta are held to account. “People deserve to know the truth,” she said.
As legal challenges against her disclosures continue, her story is gaining attention from lawmakers in the United States and abroad.
