Ex-Facebook policy chief sues Meta to overturn order barring her from speaking about explosive memoir

A former Facebook policy executive is suing Meta over an arbitration order that has barred her for more than a year from speaking about her explosive memoir detailing her six-year tenure at the tech giant.Sarah Wynn-Williams alleged Meta has used an invalid arbitration agreement to seek financial penalties of $50,000 for each purported violation of the gag order – including each book sale, according to a suit filed Thursday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.Her book, “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism,” a No.

1 New York Times bestseller, alleged Facebook executives and “careless” CEO Mark Zuckerberg were willing to share data with the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for access to the Chinese market.Wynn-Williams also accused her former bosses of sexual harassment, alleging Joel Kaplan, Meta’s president of global affairs, pressed against her on the dance floor at a work event and called her “sultry.” She also wrote that Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s former chief operating officer, spent $13,000 on lingerie for herself and a young female assistant during a trip to Europe, and asked Wynn-Williams to join her in “the only bed on the plane” during a flight home on a private jet.“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 severance payment years ago,” a Meta spokesperson told The Post.Wynn-Williams was fired in 2017 and an investigation at the time found she made false claims against her colleagues, according to the company.An internal investigation into Kaplan ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing, Meta has said.Zuckerberg has said the company does not operate its services in China because it could never reach an agreement “on what it would take for us to operate there.”A representative for Sandberg declined to comment.Soon after Macmillan’...