After Meta Blocks Whistleblower's Book Promotion, It Becomes an Amazon Bestseller (thetimes.com) 38
After Meta convinced an arbitrator to temporarily prevent a whistleblower from promoting their book about the company (titled: Careless People), the book climbed to the top of Amazon's best-seller list. And the book's publisher Macmillan released a defiant statement that "The arbitration order has no impact on Macmillan... We will absolutely continue to support and promote it." (They added that they were "appalled by Meta's tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.")
Saturday the controversy was even covered by Rolling Stone: [Whistleblower Sarah] Wynn-Williams is a diplomat, policy expert, and international lawyer, with previous roles including serving as the Chief Negotiator for the United Nations on biosafety liability, according to her bio on the World Economic Forum...
Since the book's announcement, Meta has forcefully responded to the book's allegations in a statement... "Eight years ago, Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment. Since then, she has been paid by anti-Facebook activists and this is simply a continuation of that work. Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books."
But the negative coverage continues, with the Observer Sunday highlighting it as their Book of the Week. "This account of working life at Mark Zuckerberg's tech giant organisation describes a 'diabolical cult' able to swing elections and profit at the expense of the world's vulnerable..."
Though ironically Wynn-Williams started their career with optimism about Facebook's role in the app internet.org. . "Upon witnessing how the nascent Facebook kept Kiwis connected in the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, she believed that Mark Zuckerberg's company could make a difference — but in a good way — to social bonds, and that she could be part of that utopian project...
What internet.org involves for countries that adopt it is a Facebook-controlled monopoly of access to the internet, whereby to get online at all you have to log in to a Facebook account. When the scales fall from Wynn-Williams's eyes she realises there is nothing morally worthwhile in Zuckerberg's initiative, nothing empowering to the most deprived of global citizens, but rather his tool involves "delivering a crap version of the internet to two-thirds of the world". But Facebook's impact in the developing world proves worse than crap. In Myanmar, as Wynn-Williams recounts at the end of the book, Facebook facilitated the military junta to post hate speech, thereby fomenting sexual violence and attempted genocide of the country's Muslim minority. "Myanmar," she writes with a lapsed believer's rue, "would have been a better place if Facebook had not arrived." And what is true of Myanmar, you can't help but reflect, applies globally...
"Myanmar is where Wynn-Williams thinks the 'carelessness' of Facebook is most egregious," writes the Sunday Times: In 2018, UN human rights experts said Facebook had helped spread hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, about 25,000 of whom were slaughtered by the Burmese military and nationalists. Facebook is so ubiquitous in Myanmar, Wynn-Williams points out, that people think it is the entire internet. "It's no surprise that the worst outcome happened in the place that had the most extreme take-up of Facebook." Meta admits it was "too slow to act" on abuse in its Myanmar services....
After Wynn-Williams left Facebook, she worked on an international AI initiative, and says she wants the world to learn from the mistakes we made with social media, so that we fare better in the next technological revolution. "AI is being integrated into weapons," she explains. "We can't just blindly wander into this next era. You think social media has turned out with some issues? This is on another level."
Saturday the controversy was even covered by Rolling Stone: [Whistleblower Sarah] Wynn-Williams is a diplomat, policy expert, and international lawyer, with previous roles including serving as the Chief Negotiator for the United Nations on biosafety liability, according to her bio on the World Economic Forum...
Since the book's announcement, Meta has forcefully responded to the book's allegations in a statement... "Eight years ago, Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment. Since then, she has been paid by anti-Facebook activists and this is simply a continuation of that work. Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books."
But the negative coverage continues, with the Observer Sunday highlighting it as their Book of the Week. "This account of working life at Mark Zuckerberg's tech giant organisation describes a 'diabolical cult' able to swing elections and profit at the expense of the world's vulnerable..."
Though ironically Wynn-Williams started their career with optimism about Facebook's role in the app internet.org. . "Upon witnessing how the nascent Facebook kept Kiwis connected in the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, she believed that Mark Zuckerberg's company could make a difference — but in a good way — to social bonds, and that she could be part of that utopian project...
What internet.org involves for countries that adopt it is a Facebook-controlled monopoly of access to the internet, whereby to get online at all you have to log in to a Facebook account. When the scales fall from Wynn-Williams's eyes she realises there is nothing morally worthwhile in Zuckerberg's initiative, nothing empowering to the most deprived of global citizens, but rather his tool involves "delivering a crap version of the internet to two-thirds of the world". But Facebook's impact in the developing world proves worse than crap. In Myanmar, as Wynn-Williams recounts at the end of the book, Facebook facilitated the military junta to post hate speech, thereby fomenting sexual violence and attempted genocide of the country's Muslim minority. "Myanmar," she writes with a lapsed believer's rue, "would have been a better place if Facebook had not arrived." And what is true of Myanmar, you can't help but reflect, applies globally...
"Myanmar is where Wynn-Williams thinks the 'carelessness' of Facebook is most egregious," writes the Sunday Times: In 2018, UN human rights experts said Facebook had helped spread hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, about 25,000 of whom were slaughtered by the Burmese military and nationalists. Facebook is so ubiquitous in Myanmar, Wynn-Williams points out, that people think it is the entire internet. "It's no surprise that the worst outcome happened in the place that had the most extreme take-up of Facebook." Meta admits it was "too slow to act" on abuse in its Myanmar services....
After Wynn-Williams left Facebook, she worked on an international AI initiative, and says she wants the world to learn from the mistakes we made with social media, so that we fare better in the next technological revolution. "AI is being integrated into weapons," she explains. "We can't just blindly wander into this next era. You think social media has turned out with some issues? This is on another level."
Mark, meet Barbara (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mark, meet Barbara (Score:5, Interesting)
USAID files need some of that "internet beauty" then.
Re: (Score:3)
The ones being burnt and shredded? Unfortunately it may be too late for that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mark, meet Barbara (Score:5, Insightful)
The beauty of the internet is the more you try to suppress something, the more it's known.
We only think that because of the suppressions we are made aware of. I suspect that for every Streisand Effect story to earn the name, there are many, many similar stories that stay buried. The odds therefore favor the suppression attempt.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need a Streisand Effect though, and this is a perfect case. This book was on track to be best seller before the story broke about Meta trying to suppress it.
Even here... we were running stories about this book https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] days before we ran the story about banning the promotion of the book. https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
torrent hash here ... (Score:2)
Here's the hash for the ebook for those who torrent.
2EA8E70D842DFC52127E0BE140A1AD042DC5889B
What's their fear? (Score:5, Funny)
That Zuckerberg and Meta will seem too evil or not evil enough -- especially given the current political climate?
Re:What's their fear? (Score:5, Interesting)
Must be an ego thing. It’s already proven that nothing bad happens to the wealthy and for good measure Zuck even preemptively paid the mob boss. https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it need reviewed to be a bestseller? Meta wants it banned. Clearly there is something in there they want to hide. People want to want to know what's being hidden so they buy it.
It's a demonstration of the Streisand Effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is exactly what I said the first time this came up. When I heard about this I immediately bought it. It came yesterday.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, there's an element of that, but I think it's more a reflection of Amazon's algorithm and the low volume of book sales than anything. Let me know how it is, maybe leave a review if you can still think critically.
Re: (Score:3)
It isn't that it "needs" reviews, but that best seller usually means many sales, which correlate with many reviews on the usual bookshop websites. I also find it odd if a best-seller doesn't get reviews at all... and here what is odd is their definition for a best-seller. The book is online for less than 2 days, explaining why nobody has finished reviewing it. Maybe it would be clearer to say it is having a good debut. I would wait a week or two before calling any book a best seller.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would it need reviewed to be a bestseller? Meta wants it banned. Clearly there is something in there they want to hide. People want to want to know what's being hidden so they buy it.
It's a demonstration of the Streisand Effect.
I'll wait for the little green Jolly Roger, that is the only review I need.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would it need reviewed to be a bestseller? Meta wants it banned. Clearly there is something in there they want to hide. People want to want to know what's being hidden so they buy it.
It's a demonstration of the Streisand Effect.
No it's not. This book was in the news pretty much every day before anyone even know Meta wanted it banned. It was climbing the sales charts rapidly, the Streisand Effect had virtually no impact here, it was going to be a best seller anyway.
Fun fact even Slashdot was running news stories https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] based on info in this book several days before it ran the story about the book promotion being restricted. https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org] So even on here the book was being promoted for
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a sale for this book because of the Streisand Effect. It was just another tell-all to me until Meta went ballistic about it. Now it's interesting. I doubt I'm alone. It may have been on track to be a bestseller anyway, but there are sales being generated by Meta's public whining about it.
Re: (Score:2)
It was published on Amazon on March 13. It probably is "best seller" in the sense of good first-day by usual standards, or the best selling among the books introduced on March 13.
However, I don't understand why you say no reviews. I can see 2 reviews publicly in a total of 9 (which require to create an account to read).
Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Streisand Effect (Score:2)
Who didn't see this coming?
Re:Streisand Effect (Score:4, Funny)
Who didn't see this coming?
Apparently, Zuckerberg and Meta.
I only there were something they could use to keep up on things ... :-)
Not the Streisand Effect (Score:2)
No it really wasn't the Streisand Effect. This book was climbing rapidly on the sales charts for the weeks before Meta tried to stop it's promotion. Why did they try to stop its promotion? Because it was being promoted heavily. Virtually every Meta story in the news *before* the arbitration story was something to do with this book. It was going to be a best seller one way or the other, especially since people love a tell all memoir.
All the hallmarks of a thin-skinned executive (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm about 30% in to this book... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was one if the people who jumped on this (Score:2)
Back in the 1900s, I would read about some hot new book and tell myself I might want to r get hold of a copy myself. But by the time I happened to be in the vicinity of a bookstore (remember those?) I had usually forgotten about the reference. Meanwhile, over the years as my vision has declined (I have AMD) I moved over to ebooks, because I can still read those easily. I'm reading more now than ever before, because getting books is so frictionless. Yesterday was an example.
I was reading o my online Wired a
Thank you Streisand effect! Bought for Kindle. (Score:2)
I saw a few posts about this story maybe on Reddit and then on Slashdot yesterday. Took a look at it on the Kindle store and bought it before it could actually get shadow banned, one tech bro to another. Haven't read it yet but when I bought it yesterday there were I think 51 reviews and it was the highest scored book I've ever seen at 4.8. Just checked now and it's up to 98 reviews and still 4.8. Global search for the word careless shows all similar searches are for that book. That said, it is pricey for a
Re: (Score:2)
p.s. by "one tech bro to another" I meant what if Bezos pulled it from the store in some weird techbro solidarity pact with Zuck. They are pulling so much shady stuff now I'd be surprised if they prey on each other and instead try to avoid bad press for any of their ilk.
Re: (Score:2)
p.p.s. oh yeah at least once or twice on TikTok. There's a woman who reads an excerpt from it each post.. I think this is more accelerated than the normal Streisand effect because of vindictive joy against Zuck and whatever part he has to play in current news. I don't know if I will actually get around to reading it thanks to others reading it for me but supporting the author is okay too.
ROFL (Score:3)
Correlation != Causation (Score:2)
The book has been in the news for an entire week before the Meta attempt to block it's promotion (the amount of promotion it was getting is what spurred the case in the first place).
This was on track to become a best seller regardless.
The ol' smear campaign (Score:2)
Of course she was. I remember when the government agencies always used to trot out the tired smear campaign as soon as they threatened to go public with something.
Zuckerberg the giant man-baby (Score:2)
Spelling Mistake (Score:2)
I spotted a spelling mistake in the article:
"This account of working life at Mark Zuckerberg's tech giant organisation describes a 'diabolical cult'"