Zuckerberg’s increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator."
Lukashenka's secret police – still called the KGB – routinely terrorize and kidnap pro-democracy activists, and all forms of protest are banned. It was against the backdrop of this unrelenting oppression that the activists launched a series of whimsical "flash mobs" that challenged the Lukashenka regime's willingness to crack down on even the most innocuous behavior.
One of these flash mobs was an ice cream social: activists converged on a public square to eat ice cream cones. Lukashenka's thugs beat them and dragged them away:
The protestors thought that by daring Lukashenka to arrest people for eating ice cream, they could create a win-win situation: either Lukashenka would be revealed as the kind of asshole who thinks it should be illegal to eat ice cream, or he'd be revealed as the kind of weakling who couldn't keep a lid on dissent.
Lukashenka took the bait. And took it. And took it. In the years that followed, protesters would be arrested for smiling, clapping, and just standing silently:
The world learned that Lukashenka was a buffoon, and Belarusians affirmed their view that this buffoon would not hesitate to mete out the most vicious punishments for the most innocuous actions:
https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/25739638.2021.1928880
Speaking of thin-skinned, paranoid, wildly corrupt buffoons who will stop at nothing to silence their enemies, how about that Mark Zuckerberg, huh? Sure, all the headlines these days are about Zuck's intention to transform Facebook into a sports betting site:
But in the UK, Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook's international relations team:
Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it's also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook's executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg.
These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people's organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.
It's a terrible company, with awful products, run by the worst people. Wynn-Williams' conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration).
Together, these three clauses – routinely used by Meta to silence would-be whistleblowers – meant that after Wynn-Williams's book was published, Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge – to order her to never promote or even speak about her book.
The arbitrator awarded Meta $50,000 for each criticism that Wynn-Williams levied, quickly coming to a total of over $11,000,000. This vastly exceeds the assets and lifetime earning potential of Wynn-Williams and her husband (a reporter with the Financial Times). If this bill ever truly comes due, they will be wiped out.
Which raises an interesting question: what else can they do to her? Once they've secured civil damages that exceeds her net worth several times over, why shouldn't she just flout her agreement? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," and all that.
Nevertheless, Wynn-Williams has scrupulously hewed to the arbitrator's rules, steadfastly remaining silent about her book, its contents, and her experiences at Facebook/Meta. When she and I appeared onstage together in London for the launch for my book Enshittification last year, she fell silent and assumed a blank expression any time the subject of Meta came up, and she didn't sign or sell books afterward:
When she won the British Book Award, she did not speak to accept it, and the cover of her book was blurred out on the overhead screen (she gave an acceptance speech on behalf of her co-winner, the late Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault):
Nevertheless, when she was booked to speak – about a subject other than her book – at the Hay Festival on a stage with Tim Wu and Carole Cadwalladr, Meta sent a legal threat to the festival and Wynn-Williams, claiming that if by speaking about anything in public, she would violate the arbitrator's order. Accordingly, Wynn-Williams maintained total silence and a blank facial expression for an hour on stage, saying not one word, while Wu and Cadwalladr carried on a discussion. Careless People was withdrawn from the festival bookshop on the days she appeared there:
Nevertheless, Meta has informed Wynn-Williams that her silent, motionless appearance on a stage constitutes a further breach of her "agreement" and that they are going to seek even more damages from her. This act of anti-ice cream thuggery has pushed Wynn-Williams over the edge and now she's sued to invalidate her contract:
Her lawyers have posted their documents related to the suit, including a 285-page declaration by Wynn-Williams explaining the great lengths she's gone to in order to comply with Meta's demands, and the company's absolute intransigence and arbitrary menace:
Why would Meta be so intent on destroying this one high-profile whistleblower? Surely they've heard of the Streisand Effect. There is no better way to ensure that Wynn-Williams' book (already a NYT #1 bestseller) continues to attract readers than to continue to escalate these threats.
I think they're perfectly aware that they are convincing more people to read Careless People (you should read it, it's genuinely excellent):
But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because:
a) They've done even worse things since Wynn-Williams parted ways with the company; and
b) They're laying off thousands of workers because their giant bet on AI has been a flop, leaving them with a massive cash crunch; and
c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.
Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire. But both Lukashenka and Zuckerberg are willing to be thought a thin-skinned bully, so long as that means the people they oppress the most are too terrified to ever challenge their authority.
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I don't agree with Tumblr's new privacy policy of being able to store and access information on my device and selling it. (If the Clippy pfp was hint enough, I'm very against this type of bullshit).
I'm currently posting this via browser from a burner laptop that I wipe frequently, using ad-block and a VPN, in order to get around having to press agree to the new TOS.
in other words, I take my privacy seriously, and will not be using Tumblr via the app for the foreseeable future. I will still be using the browser to give updates on this situation using my current method. I will always be using a VPN and ad-block of course, so I'm not giving them any profit from my usage.
sorry to all my mutuals who I'll inevitably lose contact with. I don't currently know of an alternative site to move to, so I may be MIA for the foreseeable future until something is done about this policy, which frankly I can't see happening during this current US administration.
If you've somehow managed to avoid pressing agree on the new TOS, I urge you not to accept if you still can. I know it's hard, but they'll never learn if we just keep pressing accept. We need them to know enough is enough.
Going forward, my activity will decrease to just posting updates twice a month or so from my browser. I urge you guys to do the same if you can, so Tumblr gets the message (kinda like what discord and microsoft are experiencing now).
Amazon argues that national labor board is unconstitutional, joining SpaceX and Trader Joe’s
Amazon is arguing in a legal filing that the 88-year-old National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, echoing similar arguments made this year by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the grocery store chain Trader Joe’s in disputes about workers’ rights and organizing.
The Amazon filing, made Thursday, came in response to a case before an administrative law judge overseeing a complaint from agency prosecutors who allege the company unlawfully retaliated against workers at a New York City warehouse who voted to unionize nearly two years ago.
In its filing, Amazon denies many of the charges and asks for the complaint to be dismissed. The company’s attorneys then go further, arguing that the structure of the agency — particularly limits on the removal of administrative law judges and five board members appointed by the president — violates the separation of powers and infringes on executive powers stipulated in the Constitution.
The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment. (source)
ICYMI, this is a case of corporations going, “7th Amendment Protections for me, but not for thee.”
It is strongly worth noting that in 2018 the John Roberts Court ruled 5-4 that companies can use forced arbitration clauses to stop people from joining together to fight workplace abuses - in effect denying individuals their 7th Amendment protections.
Subsequently, binding arbitration clauses used by corporations has proliferated; sneaking into all manner of common legal documents: personal banking applications, ordinary car loan applications, furniture purchases, and more. This is, unsurprisingly, a direct violation of the 7th Amendment that guarantees HUMAN BEINGS AND PEOPLE the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases and inhibits courts from overturning a jury's findings of fact. Republicans and SCOTUS are perfectly okay with corporations having more rights than workers and using forced arbitration to block people from having access to jury trials—but God forbid if corporations don’t have their right to a jury trial.
This legislative push to bestow corporations with more rights than people, while simultaneously taking away rights from human beings, has been nothing if not thoroughly and methodically done. At this rate, no corporation will ever need to fear a class action lawsuit again.
Amazon, SpaceX and Trader Joe’s are union busting.
But this latest case against the NLRB isn’t just an attack on labor and worker’s rights, it’s a fascistic attack on the very heart of fairness and democracy itself.
hi! i really appreciate you posting about the discord stuff. I do want to ask, how should i send the email to opt out? also, are they going to suspend my account if i do?
thank you!! i hope you have a great day/night!
They will not suspend your account, the opt-out clause is part of the terms of service themselves. You send an email from the email account associated with your discord account to [email protected] saying "I am opting out of the Agreement to Arbitrate for the account (username) as of (current date)".
You should know about the new Venmo ToS's forced arbitration opt-out procedure:
And I quote:
Venmo Opt-Out Notice Form
I am writing to provide notice that I’m opting out of the Agreement to Arbitrate in the Venmo User Agreement. Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement to Arbitrate, I’m providing the requested information as follows:
My Name: _____________________________________________________________
My Street Address: ______________________________________________________
City/Town Where I Reside: ________________________________________________
State Where I Reside: ____________________________________________________
Zip Code: __________________________________________________________
Email address(es) associated with the Venmo account for which I’m opting out of the Agreement to Arbitrate: (Please list all email addresses associated with the account.)
Venmo User Name(s) associated with the Venmo account for which I’m opting out of the Agreement to Arbitrate: (Please include personal and business profile user names)
Please mail the completed form to the following address:
PayPal, Inc.
Attn: Litigation Department
Re: Venmo Opt-Out Notice
2211 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95131
If you accepted the Venmo User Agreement for the first time on or after May 23, 2022, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 days after the date you accept the Venmo User Agreement for the first time. If you accepted the Venmo User Agreement for the first time before May 23, 2022, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later June 22, 2022. It’s your responsibility to mail the Opt-Out Notice by the applicable deadline.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
With 2.5 million third-party sellers, it’s the largest employment-related class barred from using courts for complaints, and confined to the online retailer’s private law.
Activist says Apple, other big companies should disclose labor policies
Activist says Apple, other big companies should disclose labor policies
“An activist firm is asking more than 30 big-name companies from Tesla Inc. to Apple Inc. to disclose more information on employment practices that it warns may be anti-competitive,” Leslie Patton reports for Bloomberg.
“CtW Investment Group, which works with a coalition of union pension funds with more than $250 billion in assets, is sending letters to more than 30 companies seeking…
House passes bill to end forced arbitration in sexual misconduct cases | TheHill
The House passed legislation on Monday that would end the use of forced arbitration in lawsuits involving sexual assault and harassment clai
The House passed legislation on Monday that would end the use of forced arbitration in lawsuits involving sexual assault and harassment claims.
Lawmakers passed the bill on a bipartisan basis, 335-97. While 113 Republicans joined with all Democrats in support, 97 Republicans voted against it.
The bill would ensure that people have the option of bringing a case alleging sexual assault or harassment in court, instead of being forced into arbitration proceedings that are often conducted in private and confidential hearings.
It would do so by voiding clauses in agreements, such as employment contracts, that require disputes to go through the arbitration process.
Critics of forced arbitration argue that the process tends not to favor employees or consumers, who on average win less frequently and secure smaller damages in the arbitration process than they do in court.
