Careless People

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, sexual violence and harassment, and gender discrimination.

The early employees of Facebook had stock options, making a lot of money even before the company went public. Zuckerberg’s wealth was in the tens of billions when Wynn-Williams worked at Facebook. Nevertheless, under his leadership, Facebook single-mindedly pursued a strategy of economic growth with no regard for the consequences. In detailing Facebook’s aggressive growth strategy and lack of ethical checks and balances, Wynn-Williams explores the problem of corporate greed.

When Facebook reached the mark of 1 billion users, its leaders feared that they were “running out of road” and sought new markets (69). Relationships with foreign leaders became more important. With its large population, China was especially attractive to Zuckerberg. Ignoring the human rights abuses by the Chinese government, Zuckerberg developed a three-year plan to get into the Chinese market. To do so, he was willing to facilitate Chinese surveillance and censorship. Wynn-Williams highlights a memo in which Facebook’s management recognized that its “employees w[ould] be responsible for user data responses that could lead to death, torture and incarceration” (306), yet Facebook proceeded anyway, determined to tap into a lucrative and large market.