Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook policy executive who joined the company in 2011 and rose through the ranks to travel with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and his inner circle, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Meta Platforms alleging that the company’s arbitration-enforced gag order on her critically acclaimed memoir “Careless People” is invalid under state law and that the severance agreement enabling it was signed under duress.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court, challenges an interim arbitration award issued shortly after the book was published by Macmillan’s Flatiron imprint in March 2025. The order barred Wynn-Williams from making “disparaging, critical, or otherwise detrimental comments” about Meta or its employees, after the company alleged she violated terms of her 2017 severance agreement, which included a non-disparagement clause.
Wynn-Williams’s book — which has sold more than 130,000 print copies in the U.S., according to book tracker Circana BookScan, and spent time at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list — alleges a range of wrongdoing at what was then called Facebook, including being willing to hand over millions of Chinese and U.S. citizens’ data to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for access to the Chinese market. She also alleges that she experienced sexual harassment from Meta President of Global Affairs Joel Kaplan and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
A representative for Sandberg declined to comment on the allegations. Meta spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement that “this former employee is trying to use the legal process to sell books, which an arbitrator already ruled broke the agreement she signed with the company when she accepted a large financial settlement years ago.” Stone has previously called the book “false and defamatory.”
According to the complaint, Wynn-Williams reported to Kaplan for much of her time at Facebook. She wrote in the book that Kaplan emailed her joking about a vulgar sex act, interrogated her about her breasts and genitalia, grinded his body into hers at a corporate event, and referred to himself as her “sugar daddy.” Meta previously said it opened an investigation into some of Kaplan’s alleged behavior and interviewed more than a dozen witnesses, but that Kaplan was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.
The company conducted an investigation into Kaplan while Wynn-Williams was still employed there, the complaint says. Kaplan accused her of instigating the investigation and began to strip her of managerial authority, according to the complaint. Wynn-Williams began collecting documentation to submit to internal investigators but was fired before she could share the material, she alleges.
After her termination, Wynn-Williams alleges she signed the severance agreement under duress. She claims Meta made reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in preapproved business expenses — including travel expenses for Zuckerberg and other Meta executives — conditional on her signing it. She alleges Meta ultimately reimbursed a fraction of the charges.
Last month, the legal pressure became visible in a prominent public setting. Wynn-Williams sat silently on stage for an hour-long panel at the Hay Festival in Wales after lawyers advised her that speaking could trigger more than $50,000 in fines sought by Meta. A Meta representative traveled to the festival, and the company requested that the arbitrator sanction her for the event, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit argues that California’s Silenced No More Act, enacted in 2022, makes it illegal for employers to use separation agreements that prohibit the disclosure of unlawful workplace acts. Meta’s board has said the company complies with the law, writing in a 2022 proxy statement: “We do not require our personnel to enter into employment agreements that include non-disparagement clauses that would prevent them from discussing workplace conduct.” The same year, Facebook announced it would no longer force employees to arbitrate claims related to sexual harassment.
According to the complaint, Wynn-Williams took those statements — and the lack of any explicit carve-outs for former employees or prior agreements — to mean she was free to speak out. She subsequently filed whistleblower complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
Wynn-Williams is requesting that the arbitration order be lifted, the arbitration process halted, and her severance agreement voided, and asks for compensatory damages to cover lost book sales and speaking fees.