Failed Writer's Journey: Meta, Censorship, and Impotent Rage

An insider from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, wrote a book, Careless People, that is apparently not complimentary about Facebook, its culture, several of its big name leaders, its actions, and, based on the incoherent rage Meta is displaying towards it, probably the carpet in the meeting rooms. And Meta is so, so, so very angry. Angry enough to go to court to try and force the author to stop selling the book. They won a preliminary injunction forcing her into arbitration and to stop promoting the book. But this is more about Meta and its counterproductive rage than the author.

By Meta I should say that I am almost certain this is driven by Mark Zuckerberg himself. Now, courts are fickle things and a lot of judges, especially Federalist judges, tend to favor business over the law or justice. So, it is not inconceivable that the author will lose. It is not inconceivable that they violated some part of their severance agreement. Though they published the book through a Big Five imprint, and I highly doubt such an imprint let a book about one of the largest companies in the world go to print without fact checking and investigating the severance agreement. However, anyone with a brain would realize that litigation would only draw attention to the book. I, for example, had vaguely heard of it but had no intention to purchase it. Facebook bores me. But now? Well, now there is a copy waiting for me at my local bookstore. Look for a review next week.

Which is why I think this is Zuckerberg lashing out. A man who wears a t-shirt with the Latin for “Ceaser or nothing” is not a man who takes dissent like an adult. A man who bullshits about why he is doing layoffs and fires people on medical leave is not a man who wants to hear the opinions of anyone who works, or worked, for him. This lawsuit feels like Zuckerberg lashing out uncontrollably, almost Trump-ian. How dare a little person write a book criticizing the great leader? How dare a peon think they can profit off their own experiences and hard work? How dare this ungrateful wretch make Zuckerberg look bad? They must be punished for going against dear leader!

Any competent business leader or lawyer would have let this go. The book almost certainly wasn’t going to materially change anything and would likely not have been a huge hit. Now? Now people like me who would never have purchased are going to purchase it out of curiosity or anger at Meta’s high-handedness. Zuckerberg, in his desire to punish the author, has helped push more of their bad behavior into the light. Sooner or later, and likely very quietly, that bad behavior is going to drive people away from their products. The only way to prevent that is to change the behavior. but that would mean listening to people who think Mark Zuckerberg is wrong.

But why would you listen to people who are foolish enough to think Mark Zuckerberg is wrong? Praise Keir Zuckerberg.

You can but the book via your local bookstore or Bookshop.org.

Weekly Word Count

About 4500, so less than usual. Been a busy week at work. I am also struggling a bit with bringing this home. I don’t think it will make the full twenty-eight chapters I originally thought. I am thinking it ends up, based on how I write and the trajectory of the plot, at about twenty-five chapters, or between 70 and 75k words. A bit small, but we will see what the second version looks like. I already know I need to flesh some character backstory out, so that might add a few words.

Or it could be a quivering disaster, a complete waste of pixels that will forever bring shame upon my family name. That’s possible too.

Have a great weekend, everyone!