The newly published book Careless People, by Facebook’s former director of public policy Sarah Wynn-Williams, alleges that the company’s management was “deeply unconcerned” about its role in Myanmar, which helped “enable posts that led to horrific sexual violence and genocide” against the Rohingya minority group.
Although Facebook has acknowledged mishandling its role in Myanmar as asserted by civil society and the United Nations, Wynn-Williams’s book provides an unprecedented look at its internal decision-making.
If her allegations are true, they suggest that Facebook’s failures were not simply due to a slowness to respond but indicate negligence, and possibly gross negligence, by senior management. This has been the key argument in legal action against the company in the United States, United Kingdom and US Securities and Exchange Commission. In a human rights context, negligence means failing to exercise reasonable care in protecting rights, and gross negligence implies a reckless disregard for safety.