HAY — Meta cited Sarah Wynn-Williams’ appearance at the Hay Festival as grounds for legal sanctions and enforced a prior emergency order that barred her from speaking during the event. The former Facebook executive sat silently on stage for an hour-long discussion between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and academic Tim Wu, unable to speak, nod, or shake her head.
Meta had secured an emergency legal order the day before the publication of Wynn-Williams’ memoir, 'Careless People,' which details her years at Facebook and includes allegations about Meta’s internal culture, decision-making, political influence, approach to China, and concerns about child users’ wellbeing. The company has disputed the book’s claims. Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order, and the financial and legal pressure has reportedly threatened her with bankruptcy.
During the Hay Festival event, Cadwalladr read a letter from Wynn-Williams’ lawyers outlining Meta’s latest legal claims. Meta’s sanctions motion specifically cited Wynn-Williams’ festival appearance as “an example of conduct that should be formally sanctioned.” The motion also described Cadwalladr as a journalist “primarily known for her negative coverage of Meta” and referred to Wu as “another known critic.”
Following the reading of the legal letter, the Hay Festival withdrew 'Careless People' from sale during the event to avoid violating Meta’s court order. Cadwalladr remarked during the session, “I think this might be a Hay first, in which we have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if [Mark] Zuckerberg is an asshole.” She also stated, “I think we can say that Facebook is triggered.” She added, “This is not how you conduct crisis comms. Crisis comms would just be simply to ignore this and deprive it of oxygen. This is a kind of trolling-like behaviour against their enemies.”
Wu called the situation “censorship. This is a demonstration that some of the worst abuses in our time are not confined to kings, emperors, governments … but to a class of companies that have assumed the sovereign affect, and seek to assert their power the same way that some of those despotic nation states do.” At the event’s conclusion, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation and was moved to tears. Hay’s programme director Helen Bagnall told the audience that the moment was “an important act of solidarity for the silenced.”