Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams

[readingmakesmehappy]

Has anyone else read this? Most of the coverage has been about Facebook's reprehensible approach to operating in China and refusal to accept responsbility for misinformation etc. But at least as much of the book is about the author's experience as a mother and the US's batshit corporate culture around maternity. She literally emails while her feet are up in stirrups as she's about to give birth for the first time. She nearly dies after her second birth, and continues haemorrhaging for months, and her boss is still emailing and calling her and demanding she provides briefings for meetings. Sheryl Sandberg comes out of it very very badly, and it totally undermines the message of Lean In (which I think is discredited anyway?).

I read it. Spectacular arrogance all round at FB. Though the author did say a few too many times “I thought that things would change once…”

Yes I read it a couple of weeks ago. Really shocking how women and minorities are treated in that workplace. The maternity/childbirth and childcare issues made me shudder, it’s so appalling that a company that can easily afford to look after their staff with decent maternity and sickness benefits don’t seem to at all. Hideous. And the issues around Myanmar and how they could not / would not moderate anything as the violence increased really shocked me. And they didn’t have Burmese translator so couldn’t possibly understand the vile, inflammatory things that were being said on their platform. Blood on their hands. And yes, Sheryl Sandberg making her assistants lay their heads on her lap and sleep in abed with her… some feminist!

The Myanmar chapter is shocking. Presented with incontrovertible evidence that their platform was being used to incite violence, Facebook leaders did nothing.

Yes, I thought the same. She seemed to say she needed the health insurance, but surely if she’d left after 5 years at Facebook she’d have been able to get another job pretty easily?

Not even got to the ‘worst’ bits yet, but it’s a shocking listen on audible.

Damning on Sheryl Sandburg. And the sleaze bag, sexist Joel person.

Mark Z comes across as cold, cut off from reality, profit obsessed and limited in skills.

Agree that the author could have seen the writing on the wall about the people and had much more regard for her health and safety, but can also see how she became a ‘boiled frog’.

Also, both she and her H were dependent on the company’s sponsorship to get right to remain and work in the US, which seems big.

To be clear, I wasn’t criticising her for not leaving - visas, pre existing health issues and maternity were all factors there. More that she kept on believing things would change after X or Y.

But that’s minor compared to what senior staff were actually doing!

Yes, such bad stuff!

Just read this, thinking of deleting my account. Not happy supporting any organisation instrumental in genocide.

The author eventually became a whistleblower, good on her.

I read this ages ago and deleted my FB on the strength of it. The thing that got me was how much access they allowed to Trump’s campaign team in terms of tweaking their algorithms.

I started by leaving a notice up for 6 months linking to the book and saying that I intended to delete my account and pointing people to Mastodon instead. Not missing FB at all.