Inside the murky world of Facebook
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A new book, published by a former Facebook employee, claims the company helped Trump win the 2016 US election, worked with The Chinese Communist Party and had technology to target vulnerable young people.
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Read time: 6 mins
In brief…
- Sarah Wynn-Williams worked at Facebook between 2011 and 2017 and has made a number of allegations against the company in a new book, Careless People.
- Facebook denies all claims made, and says she was dismissed due to “poor performance and toxic behaviour”
- Wynn-Williams tells Emily Maitlis she hoped somebody more senior than her would blow the whistle but when they didn’t she stepped forward.
What’s the story?
Facebook worked with the Republican Party to help them win the 2016 election, helped the Chinese Communist Party spy on its citizens and worked on advertising tools to target vulnerable young people, according to claims made by a former employee.
Sarah Wynn-Williams worked in Facebook's public policy department between 2011 and 2017, and has detailed her experience in new book, Careless People.
She also claims founder Mark Zuckerberg once harboured ambitions to run for office himself.
Facebook has strongly denied all claims made against it, claims Wynn-Williams was fired from the company due to poor performance and toxic behaviour and says she has been "paid by anti-Facebook activists".
Distribution and promotion of the book has now been blocked by a legal ruling obtained in the US by Facebook's parent company Meta.
But until a few weeks ago, no one knew the book existed, not even her mum.
"I worried that, after going through all the various things that go into writing a book, that the company that believes in freedom of speech, might try and stop it," she tells Emily Maitlis.
"I understand that there's an irony there, but it was genuinely a concern."
The book contains emails. It contains notes. It contains names. But Wynn-Williams was never sure it would come down to her to tell this story.
The book focuses on Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and the people in their inner circle – those who "enable" these leading names inside Facebook, and its parent company Meta.
"I thought maybe there'd be congressional hearings into things," she says.
"I actually thought one of the many people I work with who have three yachts, or whatever, might step forward and tell the truth and tell the story."
What does Sarah Wynn-Williams claim about the 2016 election?
Emily describes the allegations in the book as "jaw-dropping", which include claims that Facebook played a "major role" in Donald Trump's successful run for president in 2016.
Mark Zuckerberg denied this at the time.
Wynn-Williams claims there were members of Facebook staff "embedded" in the Trump campaign.
"In 2016 there were Facebook employees sitting side by side with his campaign team, teaching them everything, every trick they knew," she says.
"How to harness the power of the platform, how to target people, how to find the voters that were out there that were likely to vote for them.
"Then they just poured so much money into these tools that Facebook had created."
Facebook tells The News Agents it offered "identical support" to both Trump and Clinton teams, and says no one was assigned full-time to either.
Shortly after Donald Trump won over Hillary Clinton, Wynn-Williams claims a conversation took place on his private jet, where his executives told him about Facebook’s hand in Trump’s victory, reminding him Facebook is "a company that is premised on being able to change the type of toothpaste that people want to buy because of the advertising."
She says Zuckerberg initially “pushed back” on the idea, and didn’t believe his platform could have such an impact on big political events.
"As it was explained to him, hour after hour, example by example, he came to think, actually, maybe we can do this. Maybe we do this. It was an incredible transition over a very short period of time," she adds.
"Mark was initially curious, and then taken with the idea, playing with it, trying to understand the extent of the power that the platform had, and by extension, that he had.”
She reveals he was even considering running for president himself, and at one point was asking about photo-ops and key political contacts in various US states.
"He looked at Trump and thought, 'if that guy can do it, so can I’,” she says.
"He was planning a political tour, and very quickly wanting to go to the Iowa State Fair, which is known as the sort of first place for presidential candidates," she says.
She describes seeing Zuckerberg sitting behind Trump at his 2025 inauguration as "the natural extension" of everything she saw and experienced during her time with the company.
Wynn-Williams’ claims of collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party
The book shares details of Facebook's efforts to crack the Chinese social media market, and claims it has been working "hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party for years" to achieve this.
In the book, Wynn-Williams writes; “In exchange for the ability to establish operations in China, Facebook will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese users' data, including Hong Kong users.”
Emily Maitlis points out that Wynn-Williams’ accusation that “Facebook would be complicit in a program to spy on Chinese citizens” would “mean Facebook working for the Chinese government”.
Wynn-Williams claims Facebook was giving the party briefings on AI, details on facial recognition, the technology behind photo tagging and more.
"This company that purports to be doubling down on freedom of speech was building a bespoke censorship tool for the Chinese Communist Party and having them test the tool with these engineers, setting them tests, making sure that it was built to their specifications," she says.
"Did Congress know about this? Not to my knowledge, no."
A Meta spokesperson said it is "no secret" that it once worked to include China in its operations, but that it no longer operates in the country.
“We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019,” they said.
Facebook accused of allegedly targeting vulnerable young people
At the same time Facebook was allegedly focusing on its global influence, Wynn-Williams claims it was also drilling down on the influence it could exert over individuals – including vulnerable young people.
"I found out that they had developed the ability to know when a 13-year-old girl posts a selfie on Instagram and then decides to delete it," she says.
"At that moment, Facebook can serve a beauty ad to them. As a parent, that makes me feel sick.
"The moment that they realise that this 13 year old girl is feeling worthless, that's the moment that is sold to the advertiser."
Facebook, again, denies this claim. It says it "does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state," and says it has disputed this claim since it was first made in 2017.
Why she has written and published the book
Wynn-Williams says she considered quitting her job and taking the evidence she'd amassed to the US government.
"One of the challenges with this is that it's so much bigger than one person. I also worried about what the company was prepared to do to cover it up," she says.
And she claims the top executives at Facebook were fully aware of how unethical their actions had become, saying they were constantly working to prepare for the "worst case scenario" of their actions in China.
"They know what they're doing, and China is wrong," she adds.
"Executives I worked with don't allow their children to use Instagram or Facebook."
She believes none of what she claims to have experienced could have happened without Zuckerberg's personal sign off.
"There were just a few things that stopped him having complete domination over the world," she says.
"So areas where there wasn't internet, or with children, they were working on trying to get Facebook for children, and then China. And so his focus was on making sure that the company expanded into China."
She says the book is not about getting revenge on the company and also includes positive moments from her time at Facebook.
"It's a company that believes in freedom of speech, so I'm really hoping that they live their values," she adds.
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