Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams was forced to sit quietly on stage at an event at the Hay Festival after lawyers advised her not to speak due to ongoing legal action brought by Meta.
Wynn-Williams, whose best-selling memoir, Careless People, details her years of work at Facebook, was due to join in conversation with investigative journalist Carol Cadwalader and academic Tim Wu.
Instead, Wynn-Williams remained on stage without speaking or responding during the hour-long discussion between Cadwaladr and Wu. She was also unable to move her head or move her head.
Introducing the panel, Cadwaladr said: “I think this may be the first time in which we have a writer in a hostage situation. If you can hear us, blink once, Sarah, if not twice. [Mark] Zuckerberg is an asshole.”
At the end of the show, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation from the audience, bringing tears to her eyes.
Describing the situation, Cadwaladr said: “I think we can say that Facebook has been triggered.”
Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook executive, has faced increasing legal sanctions since the publication of Careless People last year over allegations about Meta’s internal culture and decision-making, including claims related to political influence, the company’s approach to China and concerns about the well-being of its child users. Meta has refuted the book’s claims.
Hay’s program director Helen Bagnall told the audience that the moment was “an important act of solidarity for the silenced”.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, obtained an emergency legal order on the eve of publication preventing him from publicly discussing aspects of the book, and he faces a fine of $50,000 (£37,000) each time he violates the order. Financial and legal pressures have reportedly threatened him with bankruptcy.
Cadwaladr described the spectacle as “trolling-like behavior” by Meta. “This is not the way you conduct crisis communication. Crisis communication would only serve to ignore it and deprive it of oxygen. This is a kind of trolling-like behavior against their enemies.”
Speaking on stage, Wu condemned the restrictions on Wynn-Williams’ participation.
“This is censorship,” he told the audience. “It is a demonstration that some of the worst abuses in our time are not limited to kings, emperors, governments… but to a class of companies that have assumed sovereign influence, and seek to assert their power in the same way that some autocratic nation states do.”
During the program, Cadwaladr read a letter from Wynn-Williams’ lawyers outlining the company’s latest legal claims. In March 2026, Meta filed a sanctions motion alleging that Wynn-Williams violates the emergency arbitration order “any time she appears publicly in a place where she should be aware that her book is available for sale and that her presence might draw attention to it,” the letter said.
According to the letter, Meta’s proposal specifically cites his attendance at the Hay Festival as “an example of conduct that should be formally sanctioned.”
It also cited the identities of his fellow panelists. Meta argued that Cadwalader was a journalist “known primarily for Meta’s negative coverage”, while Wu was described as “another known critic”.
Following the letter, Hay Festival withdrew Careless People from sale while she was speaking at the festival, so as not to violate META’s legal order.
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