Facebook’s whistleblower is sitting quietly at the writing festival because of the Meta legal order

Whistleblower and former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams sat quietly at the Hay Festival in Wales last weekend, reportedly banned from speaking due to legal action by the tech giant. However, in this situation, his silence was undoubtedly more effective than any words he could have said.

Titled “The Power of Tech,” Sunday’s Hay Festival panel is billed as “a rare opportunity to hear from people who understand Big Tech inside out.” In addition to Wynn-Williams, this included Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu and investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr.

“This candid discussion pulls back the curtain on the unprecedented influence of social media, the hidden power shaping our online lives, and the urgent questions about democracy, privacy and accountability in the digital age,” the panel description reads.

However, the planned panel ended up being a conversation between Wu and Cadwalladr, with Wynn-Williams sitting quietly between them.

“As a charity, we exist to support an open and free discussion of ideas, and we will stand up to any opposing forces,” Hay Festival program director Helen Bagnall said as she introduced the panel. “As Wynn-Williams’ Meta reveals – People Who Don’t Care – was published in March 2025, faced a lot of legal pressure. Today, on the advice of his lawyers, he cannot speak, but he joins us on stage alongside Tim and Carole in an important act of solidarity for the silenced. “

Released last March, Wynn-Williams’ memoir People Who Don’t Care: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Vision recounts his experience working at Meta (formerly Facebook) from 2011 to 2017. In it, he portrays Meta executives as ignorant and arrogant people who refuse to take responsibility for Facebook’s rampant disinformation or its consequences.

Unsurprisingly, Meta denied the letter’s allegations, calling them “a mixture of outdated and previously reported claims about the company and false allegations by our management.”

Meta won a summary judgment barring Wynn-Williams from advertising People Who Don’t Care within days of its publication, alleging that he had violated the non-demotion agreement he had signed as an employee. Notably, this decision did not decide whether the claims existed People Who Don’t Care true or false, it’s just that Wynn-Williams may have breached her contract by going public.

Wynn-Williams will reportedly pay a $50,000 fine for each violation of the order. Thus, the Hay Festival withdrew People Who Don’t Care from sales during the event to ensure that they can appear while still complying.

Fortunately, the audience was not left to sit still during Wynn-Williams’ appearance. Without being bound by any legal order from Meta, Wynn-Williams’ fellow participants had no problem speaking out against the tech giant in an hour-long session.

“I think this may be Hay first, where we have a writer in captivity,” said Cadwalladr, as reported by. The guard. “Bow once if you don’t mind, Sarah, twice if you don’t.” [Meta founder and CEO Mark] Zuckerberg is a giant.”

Wynn-Williams did not speak or respond during the session, including nodding or shaking her head.

Cadwalladr also read a letter from Wynn-Williams’ lawyers to Hay Festival organizers. In it, they stated that Meta says Wynn-Williams violates the order “whenever he appears in public in a place where he should know that his book is available for sale and that his presence may attract its attention, [such as] a bookstore.” The letter also stated that the Meta had specifically named the Festival of Masses as a potential violation of the law.

“This is not how you do crisis comms,” Cadwalladr said. “Crisis comms can simply ignore this and deprive it of oxygen. This is the kind of behavior that is like rowing to their enemies.”

Meanwhile, Wu likened Meta’s actions to those of “tortured nation states,” saying such powerful companies are responsible for “some of the worst abuses of our time.”

“People have been saying for a long time that technology platforms have the power and the size and power of states,” said Wu. “This is a living example, because this is censorship. Any dictatorship tends to silence its critics.”

The guard reports that the panel was applauded at its conclusion, which brought Wynn-Williams to tears.

Although Meta’s emergency order prevented Wynn-Williams from promoting People Who Don’t Careand it was some of the best news he could have asked for. A book quickly became a seller, surpassing Amazon and the New York Times‘ bestseller lists. Wynn-Williams also won the British Book Awards’ Freedom to Publish award alongside Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein who was honored posthumously for her memoir. No Girl.

Speaking at the awards earlier in May, Wynn-Williams declined to promote People Who Don’t Care in honor of Meta’s order, it instead focuses on Giuffre.

“We all live in a world now, more than ever, dominated by networks of powerful big people, whose wealth often puts them above the law. As they rewrite the laws, they grow arrogant about merit and impunity, which is often supported by a legal system where justice has become a transaction not a right,” said Wynn-Williams.

“If you try hard to silence a woman who speaks the truth, you announce to the whole world that the truth must be very dangerous.”