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Pluralistic: Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (27 Jun 2026)
Today's links Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers: Under no circumstances should you rush out and read the book that prompted Mark Zuckerberg to demand $111m and eternal auctorial silence. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Flame warriors; Cryptography and casinos; TSA v dying 95 year old woman's adult diaper; Neoliberalism and Brexit; Beyond solutionism; How Thiel cheated with his Roth; Inequality's stabilizer; Palm Pilot school; Gillmor on PR flacks; "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper; Conservative judge chokes liberal judge; Hollywoodnomics; Rubber fingertips v fingerprint readers; Snowden's telepresence robot; "Shrill"; Moral hazard, "Three Rocks." Upcoming appearances: London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (permalink) More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator." Lukashenka's secret police – still called the KGB – routinely terrorize and kidnap pro-democracy activists, and all forms of protest are banned. It was against the backdrop of this unrelenting oppression that the activists launched a series of whimsical "flash mobs" that challenged the Lukashenka regime's willingness to crack down on even the most innocuous behavior. One of these flash mobs was an ice cream social: activists converged on a public square to eat ice cream cones. Lukashenka's thugs beat them and dragged them away: https://web.archive.org/web/20070609164305/http://pics.livejournal.com/litota_/gallery/0000bcch The protestors thought that by daring Lukashenka to arrest people for eating ice cream, they could create a win-win situation: either Lukashenka would be revealed as the kind of asshole who thinks it should be illegal to eat ice cream, or he'd be revealed as the kind of weakling who couldn't keep a lid on dissent. Lukashenka took the bait. And took it. And took it. In the years that followed, protesters would be arrested for smiling, clapping, and just standing silently: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/07/belarus-protesters-rally-on-the-web/ The world learned that Lukashenka was a buffoon, and Belarusians affirmed their view that this buffoon would not hesitate to mete out the most vicious punishments for the most innocuous actions: https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/25739638.2021.1928880 Speaking of thin-skinned, paranoid, wildly corrupt buffoons who will stop at nothing to silence their enemies, how about that Mark Zuckerberg, huh? Sure, all the headlines these days are about Zuck's intention to transform Facebook into a sports betting site: https://www.businessinsider.com/metas-zuckerberg-enters-the-prediction-market-arena-polymarket-2026-6 But in the UK, Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook's international relations team: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it's also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook's executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg. These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people's organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China. It's a terrible company, with awful products, run by the worst people. Wynn-Williams' conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration). Together, these three clauses – routinely used by Meta to silence would-be whistleblowers – meant that after Wynn-Williams's book was published, Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge – to order her to never promote or even speak about her book. The arbitrator awarded Meta $50,000 for each criticism that Wynn-Williams levied, quickly coming to a total of over $11,000,000. This vastly exceeds the assets and lifetime earning potential of Wynn-Williams and her husband (a reporter with the Financial Times). If this bill ever truly comes due, they will be wiped out. Which raises an interesting question: what else can they do to her? Once they've secured civil damages that exceeds her net worth several times over, why shouldn't she just flout her agreement? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," and all that. Nevertheless, Wynn-Williams has scrupulously hewed to the arbitrator's rules, steadfastly remaining silent about her book, its contents, and her experiences at Facebook/Meta. When she and I appeared onstage together in London for the launch for my book Enshittification last year, she fell silent and assumed a blank expression any time the subject of Meta came up, and she didn't sign or sell books afterward: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/cory-doctorow-with-sarah-wynn-williams-chris-morris When she won the British Book Award, she did not speak to accept it, and the cover of her book was blurred out on the overhead screen (she gave an acceptance speech on behalf of her co-winner, the late Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/11/sarah-wynn-williams-and-virginia-giuffre-jointly-win-freedom-to-publish-prize-at-british-book-awards Nevertheless, when she was booked to speak – about a subject other than her book – at the Hay Festival on a stage with Tim Wu and Carole Cadwalladr, Meta sent a legal threat to the festival and Wynn-Williams, claiming that if by speaking about anything in public, she would violate the arbitrator's order. Accordingly, Wynn-Williams maintained total silence and a blank facial expression for an hour on stage, saying not one word, while Wu and Cadwalladr carried on a discussion. Careless People was withdrawn from the festival bookshop on the days she appeared there: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival Nevertheless, Meta has informed Wynn-Williams that her silent, motionless appearance on a stage constitutes a further breach of her "agreement" and that they are going to seek even more damages from her. This act of anti-ice cream thuggery has pushed Wynn-Williams over the edge and now she's sued to invalidate her contract: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/25/whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-sues-meta-attempts-to-silence-her-careless-people Her lawyers have posted their documents related to the suit, including a 285-page declaration by Wynn-Williams explaining the great lengths she's gone to in order to comply with Meta's demands, and the company's absolute intransigence and arbitrary menace: https://katzbanks.com/sarah-wynn-williams-meta-lawsuit-documents/ Why would Meta be so intent on destroying this one high-profile whistleblower? Surely they've heard of the Streisand Effect. There is no better way to ensure that Wynn-Williams' book (already a NYT #1 bestseller) continues to attract readers than to continue to escalate these threats. I think they're perfectly aware that they are convincing more people to read Careless People (you should read it, it's genuinely excellent): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250391230/carelesspeople/ 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. That's my theory, anyway: https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-managers-software-engineers-ai-spending-2026-6 Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire. But both Lukashenka and Zuckerberg are willing to be thought a thin-skinned bully, so long as that means the people they oppress the most are too terrified to ever challenge their authority. Hey look at this (permalink) You can’t make billions without hurting people https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/24/cory-doctorow-on-elon-musk-ai-bubble-bosses-cruel-fantasies Cargo Culture https://www.wheresyoured.at/cargo-culture/ How Do You Beat an Oligarchy? One Bite at a Time. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-do-you-beat-an-oligarchy-one WIKIPEDIA WORKERS TO SEEK UNION RECOGNITION https://www.cwu.org/press_release/wikipedia-workers-to-seek-union-recognition/ A Reasonable Analysis of the Social Web https://riverseeber.net/blog/post/a-reasonable-analysis-of-the-social-web/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Actual music piracy https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/13/ukcrime.nickhopkins #25yrsago Flame warriors https://web.archive.org/web/20010603044914/http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html #25yrsago World court says Arizona murdered German prisoners by denying them consular access https://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/06/27/germany.court/index.html #25yrsago Private school buys every student a Palm Pilot https://web.archive.org/web/20010709075203/https://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44812,00.html #25yrsago Dan Gillmor’s guide for PR flacks https://web.archive.org/web/20010626230530/http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/02/20/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/PR.htm #20yrsago German publisher attacks Bulgarian books-for-blind site https://web.archive.org/web/20060629065445/https://protest.bloghub.org/2006/06/27/fight-for-copyrights-in-bulgaria-turns-ugly/ #20yrsago Photographer calls critic’s boss to complain https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/176785431/ #20yrsago Daddle: a kid-sized saddle for adults https://web.archive.org/web/20060618012713/https://www.cashelcompany.com/dad.php #20yrsago More on cryptography and online casinos https://memex.craphound.com/2006/06/26/more-on-crypto-and-online-casinos/ #20yrsago Reasons that HD DVD formats have already failed https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/10-reasons-why-high-definition-dvd-formats-have-already-failed #15yrsago Undercover video from North Korea: starving children, hungry soldiers https://web.archive.org/web/20110629182200/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/27/3253979.htm #15yrsago TSA asked 95 year old woman in a wheelchair in terminal stage of leukemia to remove adult diaper for pat-down https://web.archive.org/web/20110627091434/http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/mother-41324-search-adult.html #15yrsago Reading of Mark Twain’s “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper” https://ia801406.us.archive.org/22/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_209/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_209_Mark_Twain_Editing_an_Agricultural_Paper-fixed.mp3 #15yrsago Paramount sends copyright notice to Shapeways user over 3D printable Super 8 cube https://toddblatt.blogspot.com/2011/06/cease-and-desist.html #15yrsago Advice Goddess: How much longer must we be subjected to invasive TSA patdowns? https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/06/24/i_think_youre_c.html #15yrsago Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice alleged to have choked liberal colleague https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/wis-justice-ann-walsh-bradley-justice-prosser-put-his-hands-around-my-neck-in-anger-in-a-chokehold #15yrsago Hollywoodonomics: how Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix “lost” $167M https://deadline.com/2010/07/studio-shame-even-harry-potter-pic-loses-money-because-of-warner-bros-phony-baloney-accounting-51886/ #10yrsago I’m profiled in the Globe and Mail Report on Business magazine https://web.archive.org/web/20160628142940/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/the-crusader-fighting-lock-happy-entertainment-conglomerates/article30520282/ #10yrsago Rubber fingertips to use with fingerprint-based authentication systems https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Security-culture/2016/0627/Fake-fingerprints-The-latest-tactic-for-protecting-privacy #10yrsago How I grilled the best steaks I’ve ever eaten https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/27/how-i-grilled-the-best-steaks-ive-ever-eaten/ #10yrsago Supreme Court strikes down Texas abortion law https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-strikes-down-strict-abortion-law-n583001?cid=sm_tw #10yrsago Snowden’s flesh is trapped in Russia, but his mind roams the world in a robot body https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/06/edward-snowden-life-as-a-robot.html #10yrsago China’s $10B/year PR ministry mired in political fight with anti-corruption/loyalty enforcers https://web.archive.org/web/20160701235749/http://www.economist.com/news/china/21701169-xi-jinping-sends-his-spin-doctors-spinning-who-draws-party-line?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/whodrawsthepartyline #10yrsago Snowden publicly condemns Russia’s proposed surveillance law https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/26/russia-passes-big-brother-anti-terror-laws #10yrsago Yes Men punk the NRA with “buy one gun, give one gun” program https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikb66V2rDcw #10yrsago Shrill: Lindy West’s amazing, laugh-aloud memoir about fatness, abortion, trolls and rape-jokes https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/27/shrill-lindy-wests-amazing-laugh-aloud-memoir-about-fatness-abortion-trolls-and-rape-jokes/ #10yrsago Neoliberalism, Brexit (and Bernie) https://crookedtimber.org/2016/06/26/tribalism-trumps-neoliberalism/ #10yrsago McDonald’s 1987 fashion catalog is a horrorshow https://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonliebigstuff/3050116620/ #10yrsago Beyond “solutionism”: what role can technology play in solving deep social problems https://ethanzuckerman.com/2016/06/22/the-worst-thing-i-read-this-year-and-what-it-taught-me-or-can-we-design-sociotechnical-systems-that-dont-suck/ #10yrsago Donald Trump’s annotated Walk of Fame star https://dduane.tumblr.com/post/146444083461/someome-spray-painted-the-mute-sign-on-donald #5yrsago New York City's 100 worst landlords https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/26/wax-rothful/#nyc-landlords #5yrsago How Peter Thiel gamed the Roth IRA for tax-free billions https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/26/wax-rothful/#thiels-gambit #5yrsago The Overlapping Infrastructure of Urban Surveillance https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/26/wax-rothful/#surveillance-infographic #5yrsago The Doctrine of Moral Hazard https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/ #1yrago Bill Griffith's 'Three Rocks' https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/27/the-snapper/#9-to-107-spikes #1yrago Surveillance is inequality's stabilizer https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/26/autostabilizer/#slicey-bois Upcoming appearances (permalink) London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Slate) https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next-tbd/2026/06/cory-doctorow-thinks-a-i-is-overvalued-and-overrated-and-still-a-threat A World That Just Might Work https://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2026/06/cory-doctorow-ai-use-it-dont-buy-the-hype-dont-feed-the-bubble/ "How to Think About AI" (Democracy Now!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUzl_IaWIw The Data Centers Are Coming (ILSR) https://ilsr.org/articles/the-data-centers-are-coming-ep-6-closing-arguments/ The perils of AI – and how to avoid them (Be Giant) https://www.begiant.ca/stories/people/cory-doctorow-life-after-ai Latest books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. 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