'People deserve to know the truth': Defiant former executive takes on Facebook

Some were minor - like the unspoken rule of letting her then-boss, Mark Zuckerberg win at board games - and others were more substantial and personal, like when she was busy emailing her other boss, Sheryl Sandberg, in the delivery suite while giving birth to her first child.

They're among a series of claims made by Wynn-Williams in her explosive new memoir, Careless People, a dispatch that's clearly struck a nerve with the tech giant.

The mother-of-three is now facing a new, even bigger challenge - she's locked in a legal fight with her former employer, Meta.

Facebook's parent company accused her of violating a non-disparagement agreement, and won a temporary injunction from an arbitrator, blocking her from further discussing her book. 

Whether you believe the at-times wild and weird behind the scenes tales or not, Wynn-Williams isn't going quietly, insisting her story be shared far and wide.

"I think it's really disappointing, but not surprising, that Meta's trying to smear me rather than answer and deal with these questions of accountability for the damage and harm it's done," Wynn-Williams told 60 Minutes. 

"People deserve to know the truth."

The 45-year-old former diplomat joined Facebook in 2011, at a time when the company was still figuring out its limitations, or lack thereof.

"I thought Facebook was going to change the world," Wynn-Williams reflects.

"I just thought, this is going to change politics. It's going to change elections, it's going to change maps, it's going to change everything."

But things didn't change in the ways she thought they would, and when she realised what the company really stood for, Wynn-Williams said she was horrified. 

She writes of Zuckerberg's disinterest in global politics, his fumbling of meetings with world leaders and his inability to grasp the gravity of what his creation was capable of.

"I was totally baffled. I couldn't understand how someone can invent the greatest political tool of our time and not know they've done it," Wynn-Williams said. 

Her book also details Zuckerberg's apparent desire to run for president of the United States, soon after Donald Trump secured the keys to the White House in 2016.

"[Zuckerberg] was interested in exploring the idea and went as far as to change the underlying structure of Facebook stock to allow him to step away for two years for public service," she said. 

Wynn-Williams also claims Zuckerberg was willing to go to extraordinary lengths in order to expand his $2.3 trillion business into the heart of China.

She said Facebook was willing to make all sorts of concessions if it meant capturing the precious data sets of millions of potential users.

"They were prepared to work hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party to develop a censorship tool that would allow a chief editor to review and remove content on the platform," Wynn-Williams said.

"He was willing to meet the specifications of the Chinese Communist Party, including their very specific content moderation demands."

Facebook has not expanded into China, and in a detailed rebuttal of Wynn-Williams' claims, Meta said they were "old news" and that the company had failed to come to an agreement on what it would take to operate in China. 

Among the most headline-grabbing allegations in the book are those relating to Wynn-Williams' various superiors at the time, including corporate feminist icon and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg, and Meta's new director of policy, Joel Kaplan.

"There were a lot of weird and inappropriate workplace antics at the company," Wynn-Williams insists.

"I think it's part of this broader thing at Meta where the people at the top have so much power and they don't really care about the employees or what's normal or boundaries. It's about giving them what they want."

Of Sandberg, Wynn-Williams details an instance where the then-chief operating officer insisted on an uncomfortable request. 

"She asked me to come to bed with her, and that wasn't something I felt comfortable doing," Wynn-Williams told 60 Minutes. 

"I just think that you should not get into bed with your boss unless you want to, which in this case I did not."

Wynn-Williams said she wasn't the only staff member to be treated the same way.

Sandberg had a young, female assistant who Wynn-Williams said was sent to buy and model thousands of dollars worth of lingerie.

Even more unusual, Wynn-Williams also claimed the pair would stroke each other's hair.

It was her allegations of sexual harassment against Kaplan, a former Republican lobbyist who remains at the company, that Wynn-Williams claims resulted in her firing in 2017.

In her book, Wynn-Williams claimed Kaplan called her "sultry" and questioned her about bleeding after birth and breastfeeding.

"After all of these experiences and seeing all of these harrowing things, it was almost like a quick euthanasia," Wynn-Williams said of her dismissal. 

"There was a strange sense of relief. I realised at that point that if I wanted to make [a] change, I was going to have to do it outside the company."

Meta's response to Wynn-Williams has been forthright, with the company insisting she has been "paid by anti-Facebook activists".

In a series of public statements responding to the book, the company said it investigated Wynn-Williams' claims against Kaplan and "determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment".

Meta said the investigation involved 17 witness interviews over 42 days, and ultimately Wynn-Williams was fired for "poor performance" and "toxic behaviour".

Kaplan and Sandberg have so far declined to comment publicly on Wynn-Williams's allegations.

Now working in AI as a tech consultant, Wynn-Williams insists the time is right for people to have tough conversations about the power the world's tech moguls wield. 

"We really are in this moment where political leaders and tech CEOs are combining forces … they're strengthening their power and influence," Wynn-Williams said.

"That really does have consequences." 

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