Article #47090

The company is clearly trying to make an example of the author who wrote about her time at the company. Her free speech should be protected

This year’s Hay festival concluded with a strange spectacle. I was on a panel about the dangers of excessive tech power, alongside former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams – who sat without saying anything on the advice of her lawyer. She had been silenced by Meta’s legal threats to bankrupt her if she spoke.

Wynn-Williams has written a book, Careless People, about her time at Meta (then Facebook), where she was an early director of global public policy. In the tradition of such books (usually written by former government officials), it is in parts flattering, more often critical and, above all, insightful.

Prof Tim Wu is professor at Columbia University Law School and the author of The Age of Extraction:
How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity