Sometimes, a book comes along that shocks an entire industry and exposes the secrets of a company that powerful business leaders have tried at length to keep buried. In March 2025, just such a book hit the shelves when Sarah Wynn-Williams released her memoir “Careless People,” detailing her time at Facebook.
A former executive at Meta (META) before the company’s name change, Wynn-Williams held the position of director of global public policy for seven years. During that time, she witnessed many startling things that she described in her book.
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Wynn-Williams has levied strong accusations against Meta, alleging that the company undermined U.S. national security by working directly with the Chinese Communist Party.
Although Meta has denied such allegations, Wynn-Williams testified before the U.S. Senate. She also alleged that the social media giant engaged in other dangerous activities, targeting a particularly vulnerable group with highly concerning tactics.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of global public policy at Facebook, recently revealed shocking secrets about the company in a tell-all memoir.
Image source: Win McNamee/Getty
Facebook allegedly exploited one of its key demographics
Throughout her journey helping lead what would become Meta, Wynn-Williams paints a vivid picture of a company whose leadership embodied the Silicon Valley creed of “move fast and break things.” One clear lesson from her time there, however, is that there were few lines Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow executives weren’t willing to cross.
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For anyone who follows Meta, that likely isn’t surprising. The company has a long history of activities many have deemed ethically questionable. In 2018, a global backlash broke out when it emerged that Meta had allowed political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest users’ data without their consent or knowledge.
The company has also come under fire for its highly targeted advertising methods, which have sparked concerns regarding discrimination and privacy violations. But Wynn-Williams claims that the sinister practices didn’t stop there.
In fact, she alleges that Facebook spent years targeting its advertising methods to teenage girls, typically between 13 and 17 years old, considered a highly vulnerable demographic.
This involved tracking when these users would delete a photo of themselves, enabling them to “serve a beauty ad to them at that moment,” seemingly in an attempt to capitalize on their insecurities.
In a recent report, Futurism provided more context on the matter, stating:
“Though Facebook’s ad algorithms are notoriously opaque, in 2017 The Australian alleged that the company had crafted a pitch deck for advertisers bragging that it could exploit “moments of psychological vulnerability” in its users by targeting terms like “worthless,” “insecure,” “stressed,” “defeated,” “anxious,” “stupid,” “useless,” and “like a failure.”
According to the report, Facebook used a similar technique to target young mothers, perceived as being in a high emotional state. Additionally, some emotional indices were mapped toward certain ethnic groups.
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Wynn-Williams has made it clear that she saw these decisions as highly concerning. “To me, this type of surveillance and monetization of young teens’ sense of worthlessness feels like a concrete step toward the dystopian future Facebook’s critics had long warned of,” she states.
Meta’s responses to these allegations raises many questions
Despite the harsh accusations made in Wynn-Williams’ book regarding the targeting of vulnerable groups, Meta has issued no direct statement on them, nor have they publicly disputed them since its publication. However, it has reportedly directed journalists to a 2017 company blog post following The Australian’s report on its targeted advertising.
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In the post, Meta described the original article as misleading in premise and denied allegations that it had ever targeted users with ads based on their emotional state.
“The analysis done by an Australian researcher was intended to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook,” it stated. “It was never used to target ads and was based on data that was anonymous and aggregated.”
Regardless of the accuracy of Meta’s claims, it has opted against offering an updated statement directly about these allegations, despite the fact that Wynn-Williams’ allegations renew focus on The Australian’s original report and may lend credibility to its findings.
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