ASK Musings

Four Stars

Best for:
Anyone who is still wavering on giving up Facebook and Instagram (and Threads, though does anyone use that?).

In a nutshell:
Corporations with this much power SUCK.

Worth quoting:
“It’s so ugly. What a thing to be responsible for.” Said in reference to Facebook helping elect Trump in 2016, but I think is a great statement describing the whole of Meta.

Why I chose it:
My sister-in-law mentioned she was reading it and it was interesting so I thought I’d check it out,

Review:
Oh Facebook. I hate how so many organizations use it for things that should be accessible elsewhere – using it as a poor substitute for an actual website. I hate that a few times I’ve had to create an account to access information, though I am happy that I was able to completely delete both Facebook and Instagram last year, and I’m not going back. Because I lived in Seattle, I’ve known a few people who have worked for Facebook, or one of their related apps. And I’ve never heard anything positive about the work environment. This things shared in this book, however, are another level.

Wynn-Williams pursued a job at Facebook. She had experience in diplomacy, and saw before most others how much Facebook would become intertwined with governments and policies. After a few tries, she was finally hired, and eventually led the Latin America and Asia (minus China) teams. She left in 2017, after being fired for ‘under performance and toxicity,’ which in the reality of this book, just means she reported her boss for sexual harassment and he retaliated by blocking her hires and undermining her work.

I think it’s been known for awhile that Marc Zuckerberg is a deeply problematic person, and Facebook is a deeply problematic company. He is rude to people who he doesn’t think can do anything for him, he’s amassed more wealth than any human should have, and it all started because he ripped off a website that rated women’s looks. That’s creepy, gross behavior, and now he gets to transfer that to whatever strikes his fancy (including exploring a run for president a few years ago). He’s shoved himself onto the world stage, and because of the power of unregulated social media that he controls, people pay attention to him.

And that kind of personality and power attracts similar people – ones who live to work, and who crave the power and control that comes with C-suite positions in multi-national corporations. In Wynn-Williams’s telling, it isn’t limited to Zuckerberg. Sheryl Sandberg, who wrote that pinnacle of white feminism “Lean In,” where she treats systemic issues as things to be sorted out by individuals, coming close to blaming the victims. During that book launch, for example, it is the women employees of Facebook who are tasked with supporting the book’s publicity. Not the men. Wynn-Williams also makes some accusations of Sandberg acting deeplyl inappropriate on a private jet flight. In general Sandberg comes across very poorly in this book.

There’s so much Wynn-Williams covers – not just about the awful policy choices Zuckerburg and company make (including Facebook’s complicity in the violence in Myanmar), but about the working environment. Sexual harassment that Wynn-Williams experienced, and received retaliation for reporting. The fact that she received a negative performance review the day she returned to work from maternity leave for not being reachable on maternity leave WHILE SHE WAS IN A COMA. That’s not a joke. The utter lack of care for the lives of the staff and contractors in endemic throughout the company – including a story about a woman literally seizing on the floor and staff just carrying on working and not helping her, and others having their safety put at risk in dangerous cities (including a staffer who was arrested because the country’s government said Facebook was not complying with the law).

It sounds like hell, and it is so gross that a company that is deeply embedded into society has such horrible practices. But I think one important take-away that is not really mentioned by Wynn-Williams is that this is not unique to Facebook. Large corporations generally treat their employees like crap. Senior leadership in these vast corporations are completely out of touch, and devote all of their life to a job, a job that is actively making the world a worse place. They don’t have hobbies, they don’t spend time with their families. They work, and they amass power and money, and they treat anyone who doesn’t also have power and money like they don’t matter. They look the other way when staff are being harassed, blaming or straight up disbelieving the victims. They say things publicly that they don’t back up in practice, and they put out statements defaming and gaslighting individuals when they share their stories (as, predictably, Meta did when this book was released).

I’d love it if everyone who could stopped using Meta’s products. But I also know that there are loads of other ethically questionable companies whose products we use, and who just keep on acting like corporate asshats because there is money to be made and power to amass. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I appreciate Wynn-Williams shedding light on the shit that this particular company has spread.

Books CBR17