It's not increasingly bizarre, really, if you just allow for the possibility of one thing:
There's something else worse that they know could be in such a book, but isn't yet, and it is so bad that it is worth doing this.
Perhaps they know that Wynn-Williams could have put it in the book and didn't. Perhaps they know that someone else — someone else British, say? — could write such things in a book and so far hasn't.
Once you assume their motivation is grounded in real fear, it gets easier to see why this isn't bizarre at all; it's inevitable.
> But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because: [...] 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.
I am assuming you are referring to Nick Clegg. The British are very easy to cow and bankrupt thanks to egregious libel laws that put the burden of proof on the defendant. They also have super injunctions allowing wrongdoers like Trafigura to silence whistleblowers and journalists.
Apparently you can get off scot-free in Britain even if you say/write things that are generally considered defamation per se as long as you claim that you utilized the "JDART" strategy:
Gen Z/Alpha use irony to convey serious stuff a lot more than previous generations. I could see a serious message being conveyed by irony and explained as irony in court.
Most British people don’t respond well to attempts to cow them. They refuse to be cowed! To allow oneself to be cowed would be cowardly. To do so would have one accused of cowardice, of being a coward.
I checked and apparently they have different etymologies, the verb "to cow" is from old Norse "kúga", to oppress), whereas "coward" comes from Old French "couard".
Sadly the UK is a favorite venue for oligarchs looking to silence critics, with feral law firms like Carter Ruck specializing in this tawdry business.
In the UK, the losing party usually pays the legal costs of the winning one, and libel litogation can cost millions, far exceeding whatever damages are awarded. Few newspapers or publishers can afford to defend such lawsuits.
Well, considering their usage was in fact both correct and perfectly common, and considering that you have set the tone yourself that insulting people is ok by opening with doing it yourself, you surely cannot possibly be anything but fine with it being open season on pointing out how freaking ignorant that was eh?
Former senior British politician Nick Clegg joined Meta in 2018 as vice president for global affairs and communication. He rose to Meta’s president for global affairs in 2022, and left in 2025 for an AI startup.
This would be shortly after Wynn-Williams’ 2017 departure from the policy role she describes in the book at hand. And it would be around the time that word was getting around about Facebook’s role in what Amnesty and the UN described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Among other things.
That story didn’t go on to a happy ending after 2017, and one imagines that, in the decade since, there have been fewer and fewer situations of strife, geopolitical gamesmanship, and civil conflict where Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp could avoid taking consequential policy decisions.
Meta were enmeshed in ample US domestic drama during that period, too; and Clegg’s replacement in the policy role was someone in the new administration’s orbit. Perhaps that’s fresh on the ancestor commenters’ minds.
Given the culture Ms. Wynn-Williams describes—and the tumult of the decade when he held the policy role—one imagines Mr. Clegg might have some stories to share should he choose to…
Clegg later held the same position but was fired as Facebook decided that it was more politically favorable to stop employing someone in the role that was involved in content moderation (including actions against Donald Trump) and instead hire someone with connections to Donald Trump in January 2025, due to some sort of recent event at at that time.
I guess that the thread is implying his position would have given him access to newer claims, just as Wynn-Williams' had, and the method of his firing might give him motivation to reveal anything he knows.
Personally I feel that might be giving Clegg to much credit.
Clegg was more senior than wynn-williams. Kaplan reported to Clegg
I don't think Clegg will do something like that, because its not really in his way of doing things. He is extraordinarily well connected, and is currently riding the board of directors gravy train.
Always was. Clegg is notorious for getting the Tories into power in 2010 by promising some basic decency, then betraying those promises to prop up the regime responsible for austerity.
He's always been an operator. Moving to Meta after he left politics was an "Oh, of course."
> then betraying those promises to prop up the regime
I mean thats one way to look at it. Another way was, the lib dems traded everything for the chance to change the voting from FPP to proportional representation, and failed.
Yes, he went back on tuition fees, and worse still wasn't able to make it a graduate tax (hence the stupid loan system)
but the gamble was that, and it was clear at the time.
unlucky for the libdems was they didn't get PR and got blamed for the tories being shites, and were wiped out accordingly.
Alternative Vote is not Proportional Representation. And to be very clear, liberal democrat MPs, including Nick Clegg, were photographed with signed papers saying that if they were ever in government they would abolish tuition fees. A cynical ploy to win university constituencies.
That said, the country was reeling from the 2008 banking crisis, that even with a competent PM in Brown (despite his 'ignorant woman') comment was leading a Labour government into its 14th year. Even then David Cameron only won a minority government. If the lib dems hadn't backed the Tories into office, very likely we would have seen a second general election within short order.
> And to be very clear, liberal democrat MPs, including Nick Clegg, were photographed with signed papers saying that if they were ever in government they would abolish tuition fees.
I am well aware, I was in a libdem constituency as they made those promises in the early part of the 2000s. I think its even in one of the uni newspapers.
But the issue is this, government is about compromises. The libdems compromised to get in power. They had a "contract" that allowed for certain policies to be put forward in exchange for other policies by the tories. They thought, nievely that they could contain the worst parts of the osbourne/cameron system in exchange for long term voting reform.
It was a gamble that failed, and they were roundly punished for it.
The problem for us is that labour imploded, which left us with no effective opposition the post libdem years.
Its all very well to say "its a cynical ploy" but given that coalitions outside of war are never a thing in UK politics, its hard to see how the libdems planned it.
I can understand that you are angry about tuition fees. the unforgivable bit was the loan system rather than a graduate tax. Its regressive, it was known to be regressive at the time. But the tories wanted a loan and thus, here we are.
Hrm. Labour was vastly unpopular. The biggest power move the LibDems could do was install preferential voting (which would harm the two party system by allowing eg
1 minor party
2 major party
3 other major party
...preference votes), and the British public (stupidly, but that is their decision) rejected it. He couldn't eg freeze tuition fees because the LibDems were a junior partner in the coalition. The vote on preferential voting was far more significant, if the LibDems could pick one of the other, it was right to pick preferential voting.
The British public blew it, because they bizarrely chose to have less of their own voting intentions recorded.
But that’s not the reason he got elected. He got elected because he promised to end student loans.
If someone says to you, “I’m going to take your money and bet it all on black on the roulette table.” and then comes back and says “sorry I lot it all because I bet it all on 22,” you’d be pissed! Now imagine they come back and say “not only have I lost it all but I borrowed an additional 3x in your name and also lost that”.
AV was an absolute non issue to most voters who elected them. Student debt was no1. Doesn’t matter if you think you know better than the people who elected you, it was a stupid gamble.
If the LibDems won the election, he would have reduced tuition fees.
The LibDems, however, did not win the election.
If preferential voting happened, the LibDems and every other minor party could have had *vast ongoing influence over student loans and every other matter for generations to come*.
> AV was an absolute non issue to most voters who elected them.
Yes.
"Democracy basically means: Government by the people, of the people, for the people.... but the people are retarded."
I think the story about the Trump decision is likely to have a politically explosive aspect to it.
Because Zuckerberg had dragged his feet about creating the board until they needed the board in order to launder a decision they knew they might need to make.
But he wasn't just the oversight board; he was president of global affairs for three-odd years.
I don't intend to give Clegg credit, particularly. I'm not a fan. I'm just saying that people like him write books and he will surely have been approached to do so.
I am making no allegation, to be clear. I was just having a bit of fun with the way I said it.
But it's obvious that Facebook want to make writing anything about them in a book and then publicising it an absolutely miserable experience.
I would say the very obvious target of such a message is Nick Clegg, no?
He's already written one memoir of his time in politics (didn't sell that well because he didn't have all that many fans left) but as a former Deputy Prime Minister in a really unusual coalition government, I think he's likely to have enough insights he will want to put in a book again by now (since it's plausible we be heading towards a coalition government involving the Lib Dems again, and he will think there are lessons to learn).
He also co-created the Facebook/Meta Oversight Board, which reported to him, and was the organisation finally constituted, ultimately, in time to de-platform Trump, which it then did.
And then he was president of global affairs.
He then left Meta shortly before it noticeably, shamefully and transactionally pivoted towards being Trump-compatible.
This is a book everyone wants to read, right? About the nexus of politics, extremism and social media.
I think the flip side is that Nick Clegg is probably not a great choice of person to threaten. He's already had the utterly miserable experience of going from unusually popular politician to person personally blamed for reneging on commitments in the coalition government (a route he chose for himself), he's not American and doesn't live there any more or particularly want to go back, and is politically connected enough to not struggle to put together a legal team that's happy to take on Meta, potentially without him even needing to dip into his fairly deep pockets.
And frankly getting into a shit fight with an unpopular American billionaire where he's actually the good guy would be pretty good reputation laundering for Clegg, and make a book Brits would be inclined to dismiss as self-serving nonsense sound like it had actual revelations in it. And he'd probably greatly enjoy doing a round of podcasts and TV interviews where he's not the bad guy saying sorry any more.
> 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.
They have done worse things, since the beginning, that they know about but people are not primed to understand yet. Each whistleblower brings us closer to full understanding, bit by bit, showing that even the lower ranks see and are party to things that are unthinkable to the older generation and that the younger are only now waking up to being not okay.
In 2015, if someone told you all the world leaders were in a pedophile sex cult, you'd call that person crazy. But now because of Jeffrey Epstein we know that's not just within the realm of possibility, but actually true — and it's within the realm of possibility they ate babies. If we get enough evidence they ate babies, it'll become within the realm of possibility they hunt minorities for sport. The overton window of whistleblowing.
I wouldn't. There's nothing I hate more than being dismissed as crazy. I try very hard not to do that to anyone else.
I really hate it when people dismiss things as "conspiracy theories", as if it was some nutjob idea. There are plenty of conspiracies to go around. People get organized and try to achieve their own goals. It's standard operating procedure.
I've always been open to such ideas. I'd ask for evidence before affirming such things myself, but I absolutely wouldn't dismiss the person as "crazy". I try very hard to evaluate arguments and form my own opinion on whatever matters I'm discussing.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
It might be correct, but it's harmful to the discussion because it makes people defensive. People sometimes confuse "true" with "productive." Something can be true, but also needless or expressed in a manner that isn't helpful.
This is something I had to learn the hard way: there's a difference between being honest and being abrasive, and the latter is harmful to you and to everybody else, regardless of how correct you are.
Retaliating against whistleblowers is bad publicity and possibly even illegal depending on what's being uncovered, so orgs do have countervailing pressure to not swat too hard, whereas there is no pressure on a human to do the same with an insect.
They have pressure to hire lawyers and consult them regarding swatting techniques. That only costs money and money is like blood to humans - you don't even think about it, whereas it is all mosq
I remember during the Google anti-trust case that there was example after example of "people behaving badly". Most of these were tools in the anti-competitive bucket but it does make you wonder about the things that happen that were never committed to code nor written down.
There's something else worse that they know could be in such a book, but isn't yet, and it is so bad that it is worth doing this.
Perhaps they know that Wynn-Williams could have put it in the book and didn't. Perhaps they know that someone else — someone else British, say? — could write such things in a book and so far hasn't.
Once you assume their motivation is grounded in real fear, it gets easier to see why this isn't bizarre at all; it's inevitable.