On May 31, Sarah Wynn-Williams took to the stage as a panelist at the prestigious Hay Festival, alongside law professor Tim Wu and journalist Carole Cadwalladr. Before she said a word, she was greeted with applause. She never said a word, sitting silently as the other two panelists discussed the evils of Big Tech. Yet his quiet presence galvanized the audience, Wu later told me. “It’s the only time on a book panel I get a standing ovation.”

Wynn-Williams did not speak (could not speak) due to a provisional ruling by an arbitrator that prevented her from promoting or even mentioning her best-selling book about her time at Meta, where she worked as director of global public policy. In 2017, the company fired her and with her lawyers she negotiated an agreement where the company would pay her $780,000. The agreement stipulated that she would refrain from making “derogatory, critical or prejudicial comments” about Meta. In March 2025, Meta discovered that Wynn-Williams was about to publish a memoir. careless people, which was basically a 400 page derogatory comment. Meta immediately filed for emergency arbitration and the provisional ruling was that Wynn-Williams could not promote her book in any way. That ruling is still in effect, and a broader arbitration hearing is scheduled for October.

Now Wynn-Willliams has spoken at length, under the protection of a lawsuit filed June 25. Basically, he is suing to overturn the arbitration ruling and move the dispute to public courts, arguing that the process has violated his right to freedom of expression. His career prospects, he says in his statement, have been gutted because Meta alleges (with the arbitrator’s backing) that almost anything he says about technology policy could be construed as promoting the book. Every time you do this, you risk a $50,000 fine. Her lawyers say the ruling has “limited Ms. Wynn-Williams’ speech for more than a year and prevented her from fully participating in increasingly urgent public conversations.” As he put it in his statement: “I feel as if Meta has unlimited control over my speech, my livelihood, my movements, and my ability to associate with others.”

Meta’s response filed this week calls its lawsuit “a last-ditch effort to circumvent the negotiated arbitration process and avoid a final determination on the merits.” He repeatedly cites the fact that Wynn-Williams agreed to both the non-disparagement clause and the arbitration process itself.

The importance of this legal procedure does not depend on which side prevails. At a time when Big Tech is being questioned for its power and impunity, the optics of the case speak louder than the subtleties of any contractual dispute. These optics advance the narrative that Meta is a negative and heartless force determined to stifle the truth about his misdeeds.

In her statement, Wynn-Williams says she made the decision to accept the terms of the contract under duress. (Meta says she had expert labor lawyers negotiating for her, and knew full well she was giving up her freedom of speech in exchange for a $780,000 buyout.) He maintains in his legal filing that when Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University in 2019 promoting free speech, and when Meta said he would no longer force harassment complainants to settle in private arbitration, he felt the terms of their agreement no longer applied. He didn’t bother to check with Meta if this dubious premise was correct and kept the book a secret.

On the other hand, you are right that the breadth of your restrictions has limited your career options. It seems reasonable that he would be free to address general tech policy issues without worrying about going bankrupt, especially since Meta representatives travel to monitor his public appearances. Still, there’s a certain timidity in how he defines what is or isn’t book promotion: sitting in silence at the Hay Festival seems more combustible than repeating the damaging anecdotes from his book. “Isn’t this bear baiting?” I asked one of his attorneys, Corey Stoughton. “This bear will be attacked by anything,” he told me, referring to Meta’s relentless pursuit in this case.