February 3rd, 2025:

Stonelake v. Meta filed in Washington’s Superior Court

A year ago today, I filed a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit against Meta in Washington State. After working at Meta and Facebook for nearly 15 years, I came to understand that the harms I’d experienced weren’t limited to boardroom blunders but were part of a system that sidelined and silenced women and in turn, coded disregard into the products we shipped to billions of users.

When I was handed the opportunity to lead the company through the expansion of Horizon, I was thrilled. However, I was horrified to walk into a room of men wallpapering over rampant racism, a product riddled with performance issues, and violations of public policy. Worst of all, the victims were predominantly children.

When I raised the problem, I became the problem – a pattern that silences women everywhere, every day. I’ve been sexually assaulted by a boss on a business trip. I’ve been denied promotions because acknowledging my success meant acknowledging men’s failures. I’ve been told to act “less smart,” I’ve been retaliated against for doing my job.

Some of you are shocked because you had no idea these things happened – some of you are shocked because you had no idea we could be honest about it.

From Stonelake v. Meta

Meta moved my case to Federal Court and then asked the judge to dismiss my lawsuit on grounds of legal insufficiency. In August, the judge ruled that the central claims of my case deserved to be heard in court.

[This ruling] matters because what happens inside these companies doesn’t stay inside. My case is a counterpoint for the selective abandonment of DEI; the culture that regards safety concerns as a threat to profits is the same culture that shapes the products in our homes, in our schools, and in our children’s hands.

My case makes it clear that hating women is bad for business, and surviving this stage shows that the law can hold space for what some systems of power expect we’ll simply stuff into our bones.

From My Case Against Meta Moves Forward

My case is currently in the discovery phase.

What’s been revealed by other whistleblowers and investigations about child safety in Horizon and Meta’s systemic misogyny since I filed:

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March 11th, 2025:

Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People released

About a month after I filed, Sarah released her memoir. I both savored and devoured it, and have re-read many times since.

Sarah was a Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook from 2011 to 2017. We overlapped in time at the company for six years and, and didn’t meet. But we lived similar experiences.

What Sarah reveals in her book is far broader than my claims. She was in the room for things I never saw; Facebook building censorship tools for the Chinese Communist Party, executives pitching surveillance capabilities to Chinese officials, the company’s role in facilitating genocide in Myanmar, the private jet conversation where Mark first reckoned with the possibility that Facebook put Trump in the White House, backroom deals with the Irish government on tax avoidance. Her account spans geopolitics, democratic integrity, and global human rights in ways that demand serious, sustained attention from legislators, regulators, and the public.

My claims are narrower: sex discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation for raising child safety concerns in Horizon Worlds. A 31-page legal complaint versus a 324-page memoir.

But still—there are so many common themes in our accounts. Sarah’s book and my claims both show:

1. Sexual harassment at Meta was environmental. Sarah’s boss Joel Kaplan emailed her a reference to a sex act, called her “sultry” in front of colleagues, ground against her on a dance floor, and conducted their one-on-ones from his bed.

2. Raising safety concerns was treated as insubordination. Sarah spent years trying to get Facebook to address hate speech fueling violence in Myanmar. She tried to hire a dedicated staffer; Joel blocked it. Each time she raised a concern—Myanmar, China, election integrity—her role was reduced. She was ultimately fired.

3. Lean In was a brand, not a company practice. Sarah was used as a visual prop for Lean In events while pregnant. Sheryl publicly championed “zero tolerance” for harassment while maintaining a close personal relationship with Joel Kaplan, the man harassing Sarah. When the Women’s March happened—the largest single-day women’s protest in American history—Sheryl’s only interest was what Melania wore.

4. The women who wouldn’t stay quiet were systematically removed. Sarah was fired after years of raising concerns. Laptop confiscated, not allowed to say goodbye to her team, walked out by security. She reflects: “I wasn’t silent enough.”

5. Children were acceptable collateral damage. Sarah describes executives who severely restricted their own children’s screen time while Sheryl blamed the policy team for “missing the chance to get kids on Facebook.”

Two women, different organizations, different roles, one company. With the same playbook: hire brilliant women, extract their best work, deny them credit, punish them for raising concerns, and push them out when they refuse to be silent.

Our stories show what happens when a company builds a culture of silencing internal dissent: the consequences don’t stay internal. They reach the people who can’t protect themselves.

April 10th, 2025:

Fairplay’s investigation of Horizon Worlds and FTC Request for Investigation

Fairplay is a non-profit dedicated to enhancing children’s well-being by eliminating the exploitative and harmful business practices of marketers and Big Tech.

Soon after filing, I heard from their attorneys on LinkedIn. They’d been doing research within Horizon for months to establish the same facts that my complaint alleged: that kids are in the product in violation of public policy, exposed to unknown adults without parental consent or controls, and that leaders within Meta have legally sufficient actual knowledge of this reality.

They were working on compiling the data into a Request for Investigation (RFI) for the Federal Trade Commission and asked for my support to include a sworn statement of executive’s knowledge. I was both so grateful for the validation and so sad to see the evidence of ongoing harms.

Fairplay submitted their RFI on April 10th with my sworn statement included: the day after Sarah’s Senate testimony.

Fairplay’s report reveals that:

• Meta has knowingly allowed children under 13 to access Horizon Worlds using standard (adult) accounts

• These accounts collect extensive personal data, including biometric and behavioral information, without parental consent

• Children using these accounts are regularly exposed to cyberbullying, predatory behavior, and manipulative marketing

My sworn statement testifies to the fact that leadership absolutely knew about these violations of COPPA and proceeded with growth plans anyway

From Not Meta’s Best Day in Washington

Fairplay’s report and my claims both show:

1. Rampant Sexual Harassment of Minors Within Minutes: Researchers documented children and teens being approached for virtual sex, exposed to graphic content, and subjected to sexual advances within minutes of entering Horizon Worlds.

2. Immediate Racist Abuse: The research team observed users being subjected to racist verbal abuse and slurs in public spaces.

3. Ineffective Safety Controls: Despite Meta’s public claims about age restrictions and safety features, Fairplay researchers easily created accounts for users as young as 13 and observed them being immediately exposed to harmful content.

4. Systemic Failure to Protect Vulnerable Users: The report documented a consistent pattern where the platform’s design and enforcement failures left children vulnerable to predatory behavior, graphic content, and harassment.

Since Fairplay’s RFI:

• In June, I met the FTC Commissioner, Andrew Ferguson, while in Washington, D.C. He thanked me for my sworn statement and the courage required to speak up.

• In September, Senators Chuck Grassley, Josh Hawley, and Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers about Meta’s treatment of children.

[The] letter also demands Mark Zuckerberg respond to questions, including:

• What steps has Meta taken to ensure compliance with COPPA’s requirements for data collection on children? Provide all records.

• How many users under the age of 18 use the Horizon World’s platform?

• What age restrictions does Meta currently have in place on its Horizon World’s platform?

From Senators to Zuckerberg: Answer for the Kids

As far as I know, they’ve received no response from Zuckerberg, and these investigations and efforts are ongoing.

June 10th, 2025:

Laura Bates’ Guardian investigation: Misogyny in the Metaverse

Laura Bates’ investigation into harassment in Meta’s Metaverse revealed women’s and child safety issues in Horizon Worlds.

Within hours of entering the product, she witnessed virtual sexual assault. Women told her abuse happens “all the time.” Children who sounded nine or ten years old performed karaoke while adult men made explicit comments from the audience.

…

Most tellingly, she witnessed no moderation. There was no action taken by either moderators or other players to stop the abuse.

Welcome to Zuck’s vision of “masculine energy.”

The findings are disturbing, but they’re not surprising. They’re the logical outcome of building products in environments that systematically dismiss the people most equipped to predict these problems. They’re the misogynistic product of a misogynistic culture.

From Meta’s Misogyny: A Case Study in Predictable Harm

The Guardian’s investigation and my claims both show:

1. Immediate and Constant Sexual Harassment: Within less than two hours of entering the Metaverse, Bates witnessed a woman’s avatar being sexually assaulted. When she asked users if they’d been assaulted, the responses were immediate: “Yeah, many times,” “I think everybody’s been assaulted in the damn metaverse,” and “Unfortunately, it is too common.”

2. Children Exposed to Adult Predators: Bates observed what appeared to be young children (estimating 9-10 years old based on voices) using adult-appearing avatars (the only option) while adult men followed them, commented on them, and pursued them offstage in virtual venues.

3. Inadequate Moderation: Bates found that human moderators were only present in the main plaza and “seemed more engaged in giving information on how to take a selfie than moderating user behaviour.”

September 8th, 2025:

Naomi Nix and Jon Swaine’s Washington Post Horizon Investigation: Meta Suppressed Child Safety Research

The reporting describes internal documents and first-hand accounts from four current and former Meta researchers. Together, they allege that Meta’s lawyers deleted evidence, shut down projects, and told researchers to avoid collecting information that might reveal children under 13 using VR headsets. Instead of fixing the problem, the company’s legal team tried to create “plausible deniability.”

The investigation and my claims both show:

1. Discovering children on the platform and leadership's inadequate response:

   Leadership knew under-10s were on the platform and launched "Project Salsa" for tweens anyway, acknowledging internally it didn't solve the under-10 problem.

2. Retaliation for raising safety concerns: Research staff say they were fired, pressured to quit, or forced into silence.

3. Suppressing documentation of harm: Researchers found children under 10 being sexually propositioned. When they documented it, the boss ordered evidence erased.

4. Abuse of legal privilege to shield discovery: WaPo reported that lawyers began filtering research under attorney-client privilege specifically to shield findings from discovery.

5. The gap between public safety claims and internal reality: Meta publicly claims to prioritize child safety while internally ordering evidence deleted and canceling research that might document harm.

September 9th, 2025:

Horizon researchers Dr. Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage’s Senate testimony and documents

On September 9, 2025, two of the four Meta VR researchers referenced in the Washington Post investigation—Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage—testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.

Sattizahn, a PhD neuroscientist who spent six years at Meta described a systematic "funnel of manipulation" in which Legal controlled every stage of research to prevent, distort, or erase findings that could reflect negatively on the company.

Savage, a user experience researcher who was the first and only person dedicated to VR youth safety when she was hired in 2022 (eight years after Meta acquired Oculus) testified that she was forbidden from investigating what harms children were experiencing in VR, and was made to feel she was risking her job if she pressed the matter.

Both researchers confirmed under oath that Mark Zuckerberg's January 2024 testimony to Congress—that Meta does not instruct teams to focus on engagement—was false, stating they were repeatedly told the engagement directive came from Zuckerberg himself.

The time period they’re testifying to overlapped with when I was there, and often about similar topics like (lack of) parental controls and inappropriate use of privilege as a shield.

Their testimony and my claims both show:

1. Engagement as the north star, safety as obstacle: Sattizahn testified that safety investments were “flatly rejected because product teams were afraid to do anything that could possibly decrease engagement.”

2. A culture of retaliation that silences dissent: Sattizahn stated researchers who objected to Legal’s manipulation “were threatened with retaliation.”

3. Legal weaponized to create deniability: Sattizahn testified that after 2021, Meta used Legal to “manipulate, control, and erase data,” ordering evidence destroyed.

4. Willful blindness to children on the platform: Savage testified Meta “purposefully avoided gathering that data” on underage users because acknowledging them would require action that would decrease metrics.

5. Insufficient safety features: Savage testified parental supervision tools were rushed in “less than a year” after eight years of inaction, and Meta knew they were “insufficient” yet advertised them as proof of responsibility.

6. Disproportionate harm to women: Sattizahn’s research found women in VR experienced significantly higher rates of sexism, sexual advances, and psychological harm. When he surfaced these findings, Meta ordered him not to attribute harm to Meta.

The documents handed over to Congress are publicly viewable on SourceBase. You need to create a free account and then navigate to the “Meta’s Child Safety Research” section.

Jan 12th, 2026:

Reality Labs Engineering Director, Britta Hummel’s, departure and reflections

Britta Hummel, an Engineering Manager in Reality Labs for six years, published a powerful reflection on what “broke” her—experiencing burnout and ultimately deciding to walk away. She said it was unchecked power, the expectation of staying silent, and the devaluation of leadership grounded in empathy and psychological safety.

She also became increasingly concerned about child safety in Horizon, observing children and young teens using adult accounts and being exposed to age-inappropriate interactions. Britta raised these observations internally and proposed a privacy-preserving technical approach to more reliable age estimation. She was ultimately told that pursuing a technical solution “wasn’t encouraged.”

Meta later introduced parental controls and age verification, but Britta wrote: “I couldn’t shake the conviction that these measures were arriving years later than I was comfortable with.”

And as my and Sattizahn and Savage’s testimony reveals, these features didn’t work and sometimes were merely implied.

Her account and my claims both show:

1. Silencing as institutional practice: Britta describes three distinct "silencings"—on diversity hiring, child safety, and psychological safety concerns.

2. Child safety concerns dismissed or delayed: When Britta proposed technical solutions for age verification and was told not to pursue them, she saw the issue framed around PR risk rather than child protection.

3. Psychological safety eroded for those who speak up: Britta witnessed an executive create an environment where “no one dares to correct him when he’s wrong.”

4. A culture intolerant of female leadership: Britta led with vulnerability, multiple perspectives, and honest communication, but ultimately found those traits incompatible with the environment at Meta.

Subscribe to Britta's Substack

When Mark Zuckerberg announced the company needed to be “more masculine,” Britta describes her feelings: “I didn’t belong in Big Tech any longer. And I didn’t want to.”

Meta knows about the harms in Horizon and beyond. But they’ve made it structurally impossible for that knowledge to change anything.

Meta knows about their misogynistic culture and the havoc it wreaks on women who speak up within the company. But Zuckerberg goes on podcasts calling for a “more masculine” workplace.

My lawsuit is about what happens when companies build systems designed to silence the people who could actually make them better.

The legal process is one way to destabilize that system. But it won’t be the only way, and it won’t be enough on its own. We need regulatory action. We need continued investigation. We need media divestment. We need deactivated accounts. We need more people willing to speak up, even when it costs them.

And we need to stop accepting the premise that Meta is trustworthy enough for your data and attention, or worse, that this is just how tech works.

Two recent investigations point to the same underlying issue: Meta’s platforms appear to be structurally hospitable to illicit commerce and fraud, and Meta’s internal governance is calibrated to reduce risk without eliminating the revenue streams that illicit activity generates.

One case concerns fraud at scale. A Reuters Special Report, based on internal Meta documents, describes projections that 10% of Meta’s 2024 advertising revenue (or $16 Billion) would come from fraudulent ads for scams, illegal online casinos, and prohibited goods, alongside internal estimates that users are shown billions of “higher risk” scam ads daily.

Reuters reports that Meta’s systems are designed to remove advertisers only when automated detection crosses a 95% confidence threshold, and that for advertisers deemed suspicious but not removable under that threshold, Meta employed “penalty bids” that raise their costs in ad auctions while continuing to deliver the ads to users. Reuters also describes internal discussion of “revenue guardrails,” and a strategic posture oriented toward acting most aggressively where near-term regulatory action is expected.

Another case concerns illegal drugs. CBC reports that advertisements on Facebook and Instagram promoted cocaine and other narcotics for sale online, with fulfillment routed through Canada Post. The reporting emphasizes how easily these ads reach users, including people with prior substance-use histories who describe the ads as a relapse trigger. Meta told CBC it removed flagged ads, disabled ad accounts, and restricted administrators from future advertising, while characterizing enforcement as a large-scale “whack-a-mole” problem.

(thank you to my subscriber Carol for sharing the CBC report with me)

These stories are difficult to understand as isolated enforcement failures. They suggest a platform-level equilibrium: illicit advertising persists at scale because the systems that optimize for revenue and engagement do not treat illegality or harm to users as disqualifying in practice.

It’s the same pattern we see in Meta’s orientation to keeping kids safe online; too much impact to their profits to do the right thing.

This is not a moderation problem

It is common to frame these episodes as “content moderation challenges,” but the Reuters reporting in particular points toward governance and design. A system can be highly competent at detection and still produce outcomes that are socially unacceptable if the institution sets decision thresholds and enforcement constraints primarily to protect revenue and engagement.

If a company internally expects material revenue from prohibited categories, the relevant question becomes less “Can it catch everything?” and more: What level of illicit activity is deemed tolerable, and why? When enforcement is bounded by financial guardrails, and when risk is managed through tactics such as charging suspicious advertisers more, illicit activity begins to function as a priced-in segment of the market rather than a violation to be eliminated.

The CBC case illustrates the human impact of that equilibrium. Drug ads do not need to be ubiquitous to be dangerous; they only need to reach the right people repeatedly. The mechanics of ad personalization matter, too. Even if a platform removes particular ads once flagged, the underlying targeting and optimization systems can keep reintroducing similar content if the system’s dominant objective is performance and if detection and enforcement lag.

Meta’s institutional posture: regulation is something to manage, not something to be managed by

These investigations reveal a pattern where legal compliance is treated as a variable cost, to be minimized and timed, rather than as a binding constraint.

• Illicit revenue persists because it is better for the company to “manage” vs. eliminate

• Enforcement becomes most aggressive only when/where penalties are imminent.

• Fines are anticipated as a manageable line item relative to revenue.

Reuters reports internal documents that explicitly compare potential regulatory settlements to the revenue derived from higher-legal-risk scam ads, and it describes internal acknowledgement that leadership chose to act primarily in response to impending regulatory action (a characterization Meta disputes).

Meta appears to be treating laws as negotiable through delay, opacity, and the asymmetry between platform-scale profits and public-sector enforcement capacity

Now watch who Meta is hiring

Meta’s recent hiring choices are discomforting in this context. CNBC reports that Meta appointed Dina Powell McCormick as President and Vice Chair, and hired Curtis Joseph Mahoney as Chief Legal Officer, both of whom held senior roles in the Trump administration.

Large firms often hire leaders with government experience for legitimate reasons: policy navigation, global operations, diplomacy, and regulatory compliance. Still, context and timing matter. When a company faces intensifying scrutiny over fraud, illegal advertising, and child safety, bringing in figures with deep political networks and institutional knowledge can reasonably be read as capacity-building for contested regulation.

McCormick and Mahoney strengthen Meta’s ability to shape, resist, or reframe the rules that would otherwise constrain it. They have experience; they’ve done this for Trump.

And it reminds me of something said in our conversation last week: “Watch what people do. Not what they say.”

What actual accountability requires

Accountability would need to take their incentives and motivation into consideration:

1. Advertiser verification and traceability: robust identity verification, meaningful limits on shell entities, and preserved audit trails for ad purchasers.

2. Liability aligned with scale: penalties that exceed the profit generated by illicit advertising, rather than predictable fines that can be absorbed.

3. Independent auditing of enforcement: third-party evaluation of detection thresholds, false negative rates, and enforcement “guardrails,” with regulator access where warranted.

4. Constraints on optimization: limits on ad personalization dynamics that amplify exposure to risky categories after a user clicks once.

5. Victim-centered remedies: mechanisms for restitution when platform-mediated harms cause harm.

The aim of these suggestions is straightforward: shift the platform’s dominant incentive from “manage legal risk at acceptable cost” to “prevent illegal monetization as a default condition of operating.”

The bottom line: theirs is all that matters

When a platform’s revenue model is tightly coupled to automated targeting and optimization, and when enforcement is managed to protect revenue stability and platform engagement instead of users, illicit markets and bad actors will predictably find purchase.

We’ve allowed Meta to create a model where their public statements of commitment to safety can coexist with persistent actions that cause measurable harm.

The question policymakers, researchers, and the public should keep returning to is whether Meta’s governance choices make illegal and exploitative monetization a recurring, manageable feature of its business.

If the answer is yes, then the policy response should be designed accordingly: not as advice to improve moderation, not as a discussion about the burden on company of complying with law, but as an immediate shift of incentives and penalties around the only thing Meta cares about: their bottom line.

This week, I started and finished Bernie Sanders’ Fight Oligarchy.

In his new book, Senator Sanders defines oligarchy, connects it to Trump’s authoritarianism and his Big Tech oligarchs, covers global examples of oligarchic power structures outside of the U.S. (e.g. Russia), provides lessons from history of when and how oppressive, hateful systems of power were toppled, and shares a vision for how we might fight oligarchy in today’s America.

“Oligarchy is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation. It is a system in which ordinary people have very little power to determine the future of their country. If you’re an American, it is the system in which you’re living. That must change. In the wealthiest nation on earth we must build a political movement that creates a government that represents all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.”

- Bernie Sanders in Fight Oligarchy

He describes the irrefutable gap in wealth between regular working Americans and Trump’s oligarchs, such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. He says, “The truth is that, right now in America, the people on top have never, ever in the history of our country, had it so good.”

Earlier this year, when he toured America on his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, Sanders told crowds, “We’re the only major country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people despite spending twice as much as most countries. Sixty thousand people a year die because they don’t get to a doctor on time.”

This disparity is on poignant display this week as 43 million lose their SNAP benefits while Trump builds ballrooms and mobilizes his ICE agents on American people without care for their constitutional protections, in scenes look ripped out of 1930’s Germany.

Recent polling indicated that only 30% of Americans now approve of the MAGA “movement,” while 43% supported the No Kings protests, which over 7 million Americans showed up for last month.

The rallying cry of “no kings” has limits, still, when the wealthiest tech billionaires have enthusiastically bent the knee, transforming themselves from disruptors into courtiers. Fight Oligarchy covers recent history, such as when Elon Musk poured over $277 million into Trump’s campaign and turned X into a de facto propaganda apparatus, rewarded with an unprecedented government position to oversee the very agencies meant to regulate his companies. When Mark Zuckerberg made his pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, paid Trump $25 million to settle a lawsuit over his 2021 account suspension, donated another million to the inauguration, and dismantled Meta’s fact-checking and DEI programs—then went on Joe Rogan to call for a more “masculine” workplace culture that echoes Trumpist grievance politics. When Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post’s planned Harris endorsement, apparently deciding that his space contracts and cloud computing dominance with the federal government matter more than editorial independence.

These men recognized that in an autocratic system, proximity to power translates directly into market advantage, favorable regulation, and the crushing of competitors. They’ve learned the lesson of every oligarch throughout history: kings reward loyalty with monopolies, contracts, and the freedom to operate without constraint. Their genuflection is a calculated investment that pays dividends in billions, proving that without these tech titans opening their wallets and bending their platforms to serve autocratic ambitions, no modern wannabe king could rule.

So what do we do?

In the 1770’s, American colonists stood up to the most powerful monarchy in the world, which saw them as little more than subjects to be taxed and exploited. In the beginning of that struggle, they had no regular Army, no Navy, and very little wealth compared to the British empire. Further, a significant minority of people in the colonies supported the crown and opposed the movement for independence. The American revolutionaries had no international support, they were on their own. But if they lacked a military as strong as the British, they had something that their adversary could not compete with. They had a vision that rejected the “divine right of Kings” and a passionate belief that “all men are created equal” and “are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” They were prepared to fight and die for these principles, as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”

- Bernie Sanders in Fight Oligarchy

The book forced me to reckon with a question I’d been avoiding: what does resistance actually look like when we’re this entangled?

The numbers tell the story of our entrapment: approximately 280 million Americans use Facebook, and about 170 million use Instagram. Around 230 million Amazon customers are from the United States, and approximately 180-184 million Americans have Amazon Prime memberships. Tesla sold approximately 634,000 vehicles in the U.S. in 2024.

We’re empowering the oligarch ruling class and then taking to the streets to protest them. Something’s got to give.

I’m not preaching, but standing with you in this confounding reality we’ve erected. While I’ve left Instagram and Facebook, I still have an Amazon Prime Membership, I use an iPhone, I even drive a Tesla. Worse almost, I sold my Tesla partially in protest when Elon began going off the rails, and after not even a year I traded back for one. As much as I despise Elon, and as humiliating as it is to drive it, this car makes a huge difference in my day to day life. As a neurodivergent person, I’m always losing my keys or my phone, but when my phone is my Tesla key, I have to have it to go anywhere. I love the clean and consistent interface and how much easier it is for me to navigate the vehicle controls.

And last March, when getting out of my car at Jamba Juice with my daughters and cousin, a man came up to me and screamed, “FUCK YOU, FASCIST!” “Fair,” I thought, despite being a bit stunned, “I get it.”

“Yes but I’m suing Meta!” I wanted to call out in defense.

And in the same way that I passionately believe people need to take their business off Meta’s products, for reasons of protecting kids and also for fighting authoritarianism, your expression of resistance might look different. We’re not going to get anywhere by pointing fingers at one another and policing each others’ behavior when the real enemy is those in power and the systems we exist in that keep us entrenched.

“It’s important in this unprecedented moment in modern American history, we learn from the past and remember that much of the history of the United States is a history of struggle. Of ordinary people coming together to challenge entrenched power, to confront injustice, and to accomplish what the political and economic establishments of the time insisted could not be done. When we stand together, we win. When the ruling class divides us up, we win.”

- Bernie Sanders in Fight Oligarchy

The more we turn against one another, or expect a standard of perfect resistance, the more divided we become and the more they win. Maybe it’s about finding the least friction way for you to pull some of your dollars out of the ecosystem that supports Trump’s ambition of authoritarian control.

Maybe it’s easier for one family to trade in their car, maybe it’s easier for another to cancel their Prime subscription. Maybe the actor who drives their Tesla to set also demands a Meta-free marketing strategy to their producer and marketing team, in the same way they’ve demanded in the past to free the bid. Maybe it’s the startup founder determined to compete on safety and not growth at any cost, and the VCs that fund them. Maybe it’s the family unable to make most concessions, but able to put a food library in front of their house to feed their neighbors. Maybe it’s the new grad, employed by big tech, too scared to walk away from that security, but willing to call and ask their representatives to regulate tech and AI companies.

Maybe it looks like buying Sanders’ book at a local bookstore. Or if you prefer audiobooks, it’s a 2 hour 41 minute listen, narrated by Bernie himself, and right now you can get a copy on Libro.fm, where you designate a local bookstore to benefit from your purchases, for $8.75 with the code 30OFFAUDIOBOOK2025.

This isn’t about being good enough. It’s about being awake to the systems we’re part of, allowing anger, and cultivating a willingness to do something—anything—with that anger. The oligarchs are counting on our paralysis, our guilt, our division. Let’s disappoint them.

As Bernie said, when we stand together, we win.

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P.S. Don’t forget to vote today!! I loved what my friend, former Meta colleague, and now Libro.fm employee, Natalie, wrote yesterday about managing our existential dread through local civic engagement, including, of course, voting. Separately, her essay reflecting on her time at Meta and it’s impact in the world is also something I highly recommend reading.

A Washington, D.C. judge has invoked the rarely-used crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege in a case against Meta. The ruling, issued last week by Judge Yvonne Williams, found that Meta’s lawyers actively advised internal researchers to “remove,” “block,” “button up,” “limit,” and “update” their studies on teen mental-health harm in order to reduce the company’s potential liability. Because the court found probable cause that Meta sought and heeded its counsel’s advice in furtherance of wrongdoing, the communications at issue are not protected by privilege.

This decision places attorney-client privilege, in theory a bedrock of confidential legal counsel, in the spotlight not just as a procedural doctrine but as a corporate and cultural fault-line: when attorney-client privilege becomes a tool of concealment rather than counsel.

Why this matters

Attorney-client privilege traditionally serves a vital purpose. It encourages full and frank communication between clients and their lawyers so that legal advice can be sought without fear of automatic public disclosure. But the privilege is not boundless: when it becomes a cloak for wrongdoing, courts can peel it back. That is precisely what the crime-fraud exception does. Under this exception, communications that were intended to facilitate or conceal illegal or fraudulent conduct may be ordered disclosed.

In the Meta case, the court found that the communications moved beyond legal advice into the realm of structuring or concealing research findings to limit liability. That determination is significant because it signals to corporations that privilege cannot simply be invoked reflexively whenever an attorney is added to an email chain or a consultant is re-characterized as legal counsel.

I spoke with attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center about this ruling. In their words:

“It’s rare for courts to invoke the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. When they do, it signals that the judge found enough evidence to believe legal advice may have been used to help commit or conceal wrongdoing. Privilege protects legitimate legal counsel, but not communications that cross the line into enabling bad acts.”

-Attorney and Advocate, Laura Marquez-Garrett

My experience with privilege as a shield

In my federal disclosure to the FTC (the full statement begins on page 51 of Fairplay’s RFI, and quoted in Senators’ letter to Zuckeberg last month), I stated that key information about children’s exposure to harm in Horizon Worlds was “to remain confidential due to legal sensitivities,” and that “when I asked to see documents related to these topics, I was told they were privileged despite being the person at the company who was accountable for the successful go-to-market of Horizon.”

I also described a “general directive to avoid documenting discussions related to the presence of teens and children (users under 13) on the platform.” I wrote that I was “directed on separate occasions and in different contexts by [several other directors and vice presidents] to not document conversations or decisions about our knowledge or plans related to kids due to ‘legal risks.’” That instruction was reinforced by guidance that if notes were taken, they should be placed only in attorney-client–privileged documents—Google Docs that said “A/C Priv” in the document title, where a lawyer was present, not because we needed legal advice, but in an attempt to keep the discussion shielded from discovery.

This portfolio of evasive practices effectively blocked those of us charged with protecting users from understanding the full scope of risk, and ensured that the information we did have wouldn’t be used to create liability for the company despite it’s wrongdoing.

In most companies, attorney-client privilege exists to ensure candid advice. At Meta, it too often ensured that truth stayed confined to a privileged thread. That inversion of purpose—when legal counsel is used to contain the truth instead of clarify it—is what makes the recent court’s application of the crime-fraud exception so consequential. It signals that the legal system is beginning to see what employees like me saw from inside: the difference between legal guidance and legal obstruction.

The broader implications

When internal discussions about underage users, safety testing, and regulatory readiness are moved into legal channels for the purpose of limiting liability rather than ensuring compliance, privilege becomes a tool for silence. The intent is not to seek counsel on how to meet the law but how to avoid leaving a record of having broken it. The result is a system in which employees are discouraged from documenting problems, leadership feels protected by plausible deniability, and regulators are left chasing shadows.

And in Meta’s case, the result is they continue to harm children and teens.

The court’s willingness to pierce privilege in Meta’s recent teen-harm case demonstrates that this strategy may finally have reached its limit. For those of us who were told to stop taking notes and to trust that Legal had it handled, the ruling validates what we experienced: a culture that used the attorney-client privilege not to foster honesty, but to bury it.

How did we arrive at this profound contradiction? The company who built a trillion-dollar empire on promises of “making the world more open and connected” has constructed a sophisticated system of institutional opacity. It’s a fundamental betrayal of the social contract they themselves proposed. When Mark Zuckerberg declared privacy a “social norm of the past“ and positioned himself and his company as harbingers of an open, connected future—was he exempting himself from this vision all along? Or was it later that he discovered transparency as a mineable resource of the powerless?

It’s not just Meta, either. At Google, employees were trained under a program, euphemistically called “Communicate with Care”—a program revealed in antitrust proceedings to instruct workers to copy attorneys and mark emails “Privileged & Confidential” even when no legal advice was being sought. “The court is taken aback by the lengths to which Google goes to avoid creating a paper trail for regulators and litigants,” said U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of Washington, D.C. At Uber, leaked correspondence showed executives looping in counsel to strategize about “plausible deniability” following its “Greyball” scheme, which hid drivers from regulators. Amazon’s internal teams have been caught doing the same with documents about manipulative “dark patterns” in its Prime subscription flow.

When companies that mediate the reality of billions—shaping how we perceive truth, how we connect with others, how our children understand themselves—can systematically hide their own operations, we face an epistemic crisis. How can parents make informed decisions about their children’s digital lives when the research on harm is locked behind privilege? How can democracies self-govern when the algorithms that shape political discourse are shielded by attorney-client confidentiality? How can we even have meaningful conversations about technology’s role in society when the most powerful technology companies have made their actual practices unknowable?

We’re creating organizations incapable of self-knowledge, institutions that cannot learn from their mistakes because they cannot acknowledge making them.

The question before us isn’t whether attorney-client privilege has been abused—it has—it’s whether we can sustain democratic society when our most powerful institutions have made transparency asymmetric, when they know everything about us while making themselves unknowable to us. The crime-fraud exception offers a crack in this wall, but we still must ask: how do we create accountability in systems designed to prevent it?

In an era of amplified concern about algorithmic harms, corporate opacity, surveillance capitalism, and the mental-health fallout of social media, the abuse of attorney-client privilege might be a metaphorical canary in the coal mine of broader institutional concealment and the exploitation of those we should be protecting.

The law allows companies to seek legal advice—but it does not allow them to hide behind it when they might be hiding harm.

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What to watch next

1. Other cases following suit: Whether more courts will apply the crime-fraud exception in tech-industry contexts remains to be seen, but the Meta ruling sets a precedent.

2. Privilege-log scrutiny: Corporations may face greater scrutiny of their privilege logs and internal processes. Lawyers and clients will need to document genuinely legal advice, not potentially harmful business decisions rebranded as legal consultations.

3. Whistleblower leverage: Internal researchers, engineers, or product designers who suspect their findings are being suppressed might use the ruling as leverage in dissent or disclosure.

4. Governance pressure: Boards and compliance officers may face increased pressure to ensure that internal reviews are transparent and not automatically routed through legal in a way that shields them from discovery.

5. Public narrative: The decision contributes to a growing narrative about corporate secrecy in tech and the need for accountability beyond self regulation.
   

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I’ve been sitting with the photos I haven’t posted since I, a longtime power user and former Meta employee of nearly 15 years, permanently deleted my Instagram and Facebook accounts earlier this year.

There’s certainly a huge amount of fear to sign out for the last time, grief over what I’ll miss by leaving and even more grief that it’s taken this long. As an employee for 15 of the 20 years I was a user, I was so convinced that I could make a difference, so I fervently bailed water out of a sinking ship — focused only on the bucket in my hands. I wasn’t giving people the power to build community, but helping inauthentic fence builders accumulate power for power’s sake. I am so sorry.

From Virtue Signaling? Why I’m Deleting Facebook

Protest is foundational to democracy and involves both showing up proactively and withdrawing strategically–like attending today’s ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, consumer boycotts of Target post DEI-reversal, and last month’s collective action against ABC and Disney when they took Kimmel off the air for making a joke the President and his allies did not like.

When it comes to the internet, and most advertising-based social platforms, our attention is the currency. Every scroll, every minute spent feeds the economic engine that lines the pockets of billionaire tech bros, like Mark Zuckerberg, who last year compared himself to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar with a shirt he wore at Meta’s Connect Developer Conference. It read “Aut Zuck aut nihil,” a riff on the phrase “Aut Caesar aut nihil,” which translates to “Either Caesar or nothing.”

Either total dominance or nonexistence. When Zuckerberg wears this remake, he’s not positioning himself as a facilitator of connection or a steward of community. He’s claiming an empire. This matters because empires extract value upward—from territories, from subjects, from resources. On Meta’s platforms, we are those resources. Our photos, our connections, our attention, our children’s developing minds.

The same impulse that drives us into the streets to declare ‘No Kings’ could also drive us to withdraw our labor—in this case, our digital labor of content creation and attention—from those who would crown themselves emperors of our online lives.

The same company that internal documents show knew its platforms harmed young people’s mental health chose to prioritize engagement metrics over user welfare. The emperor metaphor is tone-deaf—it’s also revealing. While 42 state Attorneys General take action against Meta for knowingly deploying manipulative features that harm kids, its CEO literally wears his imperial ambitions.

Meta publicly frames its mission around connection (“bring the world closer together,” etc.), enabling creativity, empowering users. For someone trying to present themselves as an advocate for users or community, the shirt suggests the opposite: it’s his empire, and an empire requires extractable subjects, and value flows upward, not outward. When the CEO tells us that they see themselves as a Caesar, believe them.

When we post our photos, share our thoughts, or even lurk and scroll, we generate:

• Ad revenue with every impression served

• Training data for AI systems

• Network effects that keep others locked in, peer pressure that this is the “only option”

• Social legitimacy for platforms increasingly hostile to our values

Unlike physical goods that exist after purchase, platforms need our continuous participation to survive. They require fresh content, active users, and ongoing engagement. Without us, they’re empty architecture.

And without us, advertisers leave, too. Every person who leaves makes the platform less attractive to brands who need engaged audiences. We can accelerate this by directly pressuring companies about their ad spending—asking brands why they’re funding platforms that harm kids, that undermine democracy, that see us as subjects rather than citizens. But even without pressuring advertisers, our absence speaks. Our absence makes advertising on Meta’s platforms less valuable.

Perfect ethical consumption under late capitalism is a myth, and I’m not here to pretend otherwise. We all make compromises based on our circumstances, our needs, our geography, our finances. The difference with social platforms is this: switching costs are remarkably low. When I stopped posting to Instagram, I just... stopped.

I wish I could tell you that my life only improved after leaving Instagram and Facebook. While there have been huge benefits, I also miss it a lot. I haven’t found an alternative that replaces my Instagram grid. It was where I chronicled my life. It would be a really great place to grow my Substack–I mean, really great place. But all of these benefits feel extremely hollow when I consider that Meta knows it’s destroying young peoples’ mental health, grovels to authoritarians, and stands for free speech only when it benefits them.

When will we stop seeing social platforms as a “necessary evil” and instead as they are, unnecessary evils?

How do we share life without enriching billionaires?

Direct Connection:

• Email photos directly or use shared drives

• Create ongoing group threads for life updates

• Write a newsletter for your friends, family, or community

• Meet in person to share stories and images

For some of us, myself included, digital social spaces offer an opportunity to engage on our own terms where socializing IRL might be more difficult. If you struggle with phone calls or in person meetups, there are other options online, too.

Emerging Alternatives:

• Bluesky and the AT Protocol: This matters because AT (Authenticated Transfer Protocol) means you own your social graph. You can leave Bluesky tomorrow and take your followers with you to any AT-compatible platform.

  Bluesky CEO, Jay Graber, showed up to SXSW this year in a black t-shirt similar to Zuck’s that read “Mundus sine caesaribus,” which is Latin for “a world without Caesars.”

  

• Tribela: In Beta, explicitly positions itself against monopolistic practices. Their website says, “Tribela is rethinking the design of social media from the ground up. We are creating a space where safety, creativity, and control come first.”

  CEO, Natalie Boll, told Authority Magazine, “I launched Tribela because I saw the harm social media was having on young people and knew a safer, more ethical platform was possible.”

  

• Other federated networks: Mastodon, Pixelfed—no single owner can sell or corrupt.

What alternatives do you use? What’s working?

Our choice is between empire and community. Between “Aut Caesar aut nihil” and “Mundus sine caesaribus.”

I want a world where “subjects” stop being harmed while being told it’s good for them. A world without Kings, and a world without Caesars.

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I included a picture of my work badge inside of a bowl. I’d been laid off while on a medical leave which started after experiencing what I’d later identify as autistic burnout and the bowl had been a gift from one of my direct reports. It was Kintsugi, a form of Japanese craftsmanship where broken pieces of pottery are mended together with sap from the Urushi tree and gold dust.

The sap, painstakingly collected by artisans from horizontal lines cut across 10 year old trees, is incredibly strong and durable. Together with the gold and broken pottery, the end product is one-of-a-kind and many would say, more beautiful than the original. It continues to be a deeply meaningful reminder that breaking isn’t the end of a story but the beginning of a new one.

My farewell e-mail to former colleagues in January 2024:

Goodbye and carry on strong ❤️

Eleven months ago, I shared my decision to take a leave of absence. Today marks the end of that chapter, as it is my final day at Meta. I envisioned returning as a success story, inspiring others to feel safe taking a leave if needed. While I won’t have that chance, I still want to convey that it was worth taking the leave. If your thoughts get scary and dark, don’t talk yourself out of getting help for fear of the impact on your career. Even after everything, the leave was still the right decision.

Unequivocally, I love this company. Being a Facebooker, and then a Metamate, has been the experience of a lifetime - nearly 15 years of the best opportunities, friendships, growth, stability and adventure. The company was there for me when I had each of my 3 babies, and throughout the pandemic roller coaster. I’ve received the most generous healthcare coverage and benefits that most people on earth will never experience. I’ve traveled the world, met the most inspiring people, and worked tirelessly side by side with many of you from the trenches of tech for a decade and a half. I’ve played a significant role in making social marketing a better experience for people by changing how companies think about marketing to them. I’ve personally supported thousands of partners and developers, building treasured relationships from the CMO to the garage coder. I’ve helped keep user data shared with third parties safe, and have helped teach regulatory bodies how the internet works. The opportunity to have an inside view of so many different business models, including ours, has been a privilege. The opportunity to learn from, know, and be known by so many of you has been the gift of a lifetime.

When I started my leave, Reality Labs had six female Directors or VPs in PMM. I am now the third to exit the company from a medical leave in the last year. Out of concern that my farewell could be woven into a more comfortable narrative, let me be unambiguous; in my experience, we make it very difficult for women to sustain long term careers, especially in roles where our job requires us to tell powerful men news they might not want to hear.

My intention is not to condemn, but to empower and encourage. I believe that nearly all of us are allies who are deeply good and deeply care. But I also believe that the problem is deeply misunderstood by even the best intending people. And that is an issue that everyone needs to care about.

There are so many people inside and outside of this company who deserve individual acknowledgement for their role in making this the career of my dreams. I’ve worked with some of the best teammates, teams, partners, and managers at this company that I want to thank. There are also a handful of people coming to mind throughout the years to whom I owe apologies. I plan to tend to the thanks and the repair when I am in a better place with my health, but I hope you feel the love I’m sending in the meantime.

I’m rooting for you! As humans, and as a company. Saying goodbye to Meta comes with mixed emotions, but the strongest one is gratitude. Facebook, Meta, everyone – thank you.

Kelly

While it would have been more comfortable for Meta if the narrative around my departure was purely about rest, healing, and new beginnings, that would not have been the truth. So I said, “Out of concern that my farewell could be woven into a more comfortable narrative, let me be unambiguous; in my experience, we make it very difficult for women to sustain long term careers, especially in roles where our job requires us to tell powerful men news they might not want to hear.”

Many would have loved it if I could’ve continued being a Meta loyalist and apologist, but that was not possible after witnessing Meta’s toxic system of silencing female voices and the vulnerabilities that created for our most vulnerable users, especially kids.

How often does our silence tacitly endorse narratives that benefit those in power? Where can telling the truth of our experience create footholds for change?

When our leaders or activists tell people to film ICE or record police encounters, it’s the same principle: don’t let those in power control the narrative. Refuse to be silenced and keep the evidence visible. Hold the story in public view so it can’t be rewritten into something easier to accept.

Oppressive systems are good at rewriting endings. Every time we accept a bubble-wrapped version, we lose a chance to see what’s actually broken in order to protect those in power.

I still look at this Kintsugi bowl every day. I love it for so many reasons, but mostly for how it models truth telling as a form of harm reduction. I love that it doesn’t ask us to obscure what’s wrong, or polish it away, or hide it in the name of moving on, but to really see what broke and repair it patiently. To hold the fuller story. To refuse the easy rewrite.

To make the cracks visible, and to choose to mend them in gold.

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It’s a valid question, and one I’ve thought a lot about. It’s one of those easy-to-understand-to-those-who-lived-it-but-hard-to-explain-to-those-who-haven’t things.

The answer has came to mind while processing my own experience leaving the Mormon church as a teenager. It came to mind again this week watching Christian Nationalism on full display at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. It came to mind reading the internet’s comments questioning Sarah Wynn Williams (“why come forward years later?”) and again this month to Dr. Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage and former colleagues (“how can some of them still work there?”).

How did I stay so long and only come forward after years of working there? Because I was part of a harmful system who benefitted from my belief that it was good, and I held firmly to that belief until I suddenly couldn’t. Like a bag over my head, I wasn’t able to fully see the system until the bag was off.

Bags over my head have been held in place with such logical scaffolding: so many platitudes and posters and promises about salvation and making the world a better place. I believed them.

And believing had benefits– yes, literal compensation and health insurance, and food from the Bishop’s storehouse stocked my childhood kitchen, but also a sense of community, sense of purpose.

But when, as a teen, I learned Mormon Blacks could not hold the Priesthood–Mormonism’s path to eternal salvation–until the 1980’s, I was dumbfounded. When I asked my Bishop how this could be, he explained matter-of-fact that Prophets had to impose this restriction in order to be with the expectations of the times and grow as a church. I couldn’t accept that God would allow pre-1980’s Black souls to perish in order to satisfy growth objectives, and so the whole structure crumbled and the bag came off.

If I couldn’t believe the words of the Prophet as true to God’s, I couldn’t accept the premise of a modern day “true church of Christ,” and so core tenets that I once understood as meaningful and virtuous was now only computable as manipulative and coercive.

I’d later believe in Meta with equal if not greater faithfulness to their goodness in the world–truly believing Meta was making the world more open and connected, truly believing that Meta would always try to do the right thing by their employees and customers. When I saw this contradicted with my own eyes, and my efforts to end and escalate resulted in exclusion and retaliation, the scaffolding fell at once after a long, drawn out unsuccessful effort to find an accountable Meta, ready to repair the harm done.

It was only then that I was able to appreciate how things I’d rationalized away as individual bad actors—from the crotch grabs to the threats over promotions—were part of a system that disregarded women, the same one that ended my career and was making the product more harmful for children.

The bag came off.

Science has another name for that scaffolding—coercive control—and the tactics likely look familiar to anyone who’s experienced them, whether in an intimate relationship, mega church, or board room. They share a common architecture to achieve and reinforce compliance:

• Isolation and information control: Systems cut people off from outside perspectives that might challenge the official narrative. In abusive relationships, partners are separated from friends and family. In authoritarian religious groups, outside sources are labeled dangerous or faithless. In corporate environments, dissenting voices are marginalized and outside scrutiny has it’s credibility triangulated away.

• Manufactured dependency: The system becomes a significant source of identity, meaning, and material security. Leaving threatens not just income or relationships, but your entire sense of self.

• Rebranding harm as virtue: Suffering gets repackaged as sacrifice, exhaustion as dedication. The harder it gets, the more virtuous you must be for enduring it, so you keep your head down and continue to do your part.

• Gaslighting: When you notice contradictions or harm, you’re told the problem is your perception, your faith, your commitment. The system’s failures become your personal shortcomings.

• Intermittent reinforcement: Periods of punishment alternate with occasional kindness or validation, creating powerful psychological bonds. With a warped sense of perspective, you become grateful for basic decency, relieved when the pressure temporarily lifts, always hoping to earn back approval.

A group of girlfriends who understand coercive control also understand when their friend shares unexpected news—that she’s leaving the partner who seemed so perfect, so charming, so devoted, but had actually been undermining her confidence, financially abusing her, and isolating her from everyone she cares about. They won’t ask “why didn’t you leave sooner?” or “how could you not see it?” They’ll say “I’m so glad you’re finally seeing it” and “we’re here for you” because they understand how these patterns work.

Or like my girlfriend said to me, “it’s time to share the shame.”

When someone finally leaves a toxic workplace, abusive partner, or hate-mongering religious community, we could respond the way those girlfriends do.

We might say “congrats on ripping that god damn bag off your head” if we understand how these patterns work.

And then some of the attention spent scrutinizing ourselves and one another for our behaviors can be directed toward the harmful systems that benefit–namely patriarchy, capitalism–and why they’re putting bags over our heads to begin with.

The Golden Hour by Karen Attiah

The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced.

Last week, the Washington Post fired me…

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7 months ago · 6787 likes · 1521 comments · Karen Attiah

Kimmel delivered a monologue that many found offensive and some said was inaccurate. The Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, responded by telling local stations they should stop airing him and floated the idea of investigations and fines. Nexstar, the country’s largest owner of independent stations, soon announced it would stop carrying Kimmel’s show (important: Nexstar also has a $6 billion merger pending before the same commission). ABC immediately followed by suspending Kimmel… indefinitely.

Karen Attiah, The Washington Post’s only full time Black opinion columnist, also lost her job for comments related to Kirk, which included posing questions about the hypocrisy between conservative response to Kirk’s death as compared to the silence and (at best case) apparent performative confusion in the wake of Rep. Melissa Hortman’s.

Attiah also shared, without commentary, a quote that Charlie Kirk had previously made about black women.

Charlie Kirk has previously said that Black people were better off during slavery and Jim Crow and reinforces harmful racial stereotypes:

Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023

The Post Guild, a coalition of over 1,000 Washington Post employees, said the move to fire Attiah violated basic process and undermined free speech. A columnist whose role was to push into difficult conversations was pushed out instead.

Free speech’s erosion for political or corporate reasons is not limited to the Charlie Kirk context. At Meta, Sarah Wynn-Williams published Careless People, a memoir that accuses our former employer of wrongdoing. Shortly after its release, Meta obtained an emergency arbitration order preventing her from promoting the book, citing a non-disparagement clause in her severance agreement. This is the same company that used their commitment to free speech to defend walking back content moderation and safety practices.

In “The myth of Meta’s free speech places democracy at risk”, Policy Fellow Pallavi Sethi said,

“However, Meta’s approach, which is framed as a ‘commitment to free expression’, ultimately undermines the very principles it claims to protect.”

Earlier this month, at a White House dinner on AI, Mark Zuckerberg promised Meta would invest “at least $600 billion through ’28” — and later was caught on a hot mic telling Trump he “wasn’t ready” and “wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.” Companies are doing some really strange things to protect the emotions of the most powerful person in the world.

As such, criticism of Trump, his allies, interests, or causes, has become increasingly dangerous for journalists, comedians, and even regular people trying to speak the truth about their experiences, which represents a fundamental compromise of free speech—something that, ironically, Charlie Kirk wanted to protect.

Kirk criticized cancel culture and warned about dissenting voices being punished. Still, in the days since his death, his name is being invoked to justify the suspension of a comedian and the dismissal of a columnist because they made statements that included calling out the right for politicizing Kirk’s death.

“You should be allowed to say outrageous things,” Kirk told the Oxford Union earlier this year.

Now, Charlie Kirk’s death is being politicized to advance actions against free expression rather than for it.

Here’s what weakens our freedom of speech:

• Leaders and organizations choosing obedience to power and their own interests over principled protection of dissent

• Mergers, funding commitments, and political relationships dictating who gets to speak

We need to stop arguing about whether Kimmel was right or wrong, or whether Attiah’s posts were wise. We can be fully in their corner and insist on a discussion instead about whether we can hold on to the principle that expression, even if flawed or uncomfortable, should not be silenced under political pressure. It’s a distortion of free speech and the principles of democracy itself.

When I was handed the opportunity to lead the company through the expansion of Horizon, I was thrilled. However, I was horrified to walk into a room of men wallpapering over rampant racism, a product riddled with performance issues, and violations of public policy. Worst of all, the victims were predominantly children.

Meta moved to federal court and asked the judge to dismiss the case entirely, arguing that my claim was legally insufficient.

Companies often count on cases being toppled at this stage, but the judge on my case ruled last week that my central claims deserve to be heard. We’re moving forward! This means the case now moves into discovery, where Meta will have to turn over documents and testimony that could reveal what really happens behind closed doors.

Why does this matter?

Early last year when I met a friend and mentor for Vietnamese food, I laid out my dilemma: how could I make a real difference for the women still enduring Meta's toxic culture, for kids using platforms that treat their safety as secondary? His response was immediate: “Discovery is how.”

In a legal context, discovery is the pre-trial process where parties in a case exchange relevant information. This process aims to ensure that both sides are aware of the evidence and potential witnesses that may be presented at trial, in the spirit of fairness and transparency.

I turned the idea over in my head, and held up every rationalization against filing a lawsuit. There are many reasons to be afraid of, or dissuaded from, filing suit against a trillion dollar company; many want to but simply can’t risk the paycheck, the loss of health insurance, or being blacklisted in their industry.

My relative financial stability and strong professional reputation were what I felt most scared to lose. But these were privileges attributable, in large part, to my relationship with Meta, so jeopardizing these safeties in an effort to hold Meta accountable to keep us all safe felt just.

I wrote more about this in How to Be Afraid,

“This is the opportunity: to be with our fear long enough to recognize the catastrophe of inaction is likely far worse than the catastrophe of action.”

And I have an extensive support system of the best lawyers, therapists, friends, and family.

Plus, my experiences at Meta led me to questioning my capacity for corporate life, and autistic burnout has taken much of that choice away; I’ve lost many of the skills and capabilities I’ve always relied on. I have a career to grieve either way.

So it matters that my case continues, for me, yes, but it also matters for anyone who has wondered if filing a discrimination or retaliation claim is worth it.

It matters for those of us who became the problem because we raised a problem.

It matters because what happens inside these companies doesn’t stay inside. My case is a counterpoint for the selective abandonment of DEI; the culture that regards safety concerns as a threat to profits is the same culture that shapes the products in our homes, in our schools, and in our children’s hands.

As I said in Meta’s Misogyny: A Case Study in Predictable Harm:

“The technology industry likes to talk about innovation and disruption. But the most important disruption might be the simplest: building companies that actually listen to the people most likely to understand the problems they're trying to solve.

Creating safer products requires creating safer internal cultures—environments where people feel safe to raise concerns, where diverse perspectives are actively sought rather than reluctantly tolerated, where disagreement isn't treated like disloyalty.”

My case makes it clear that hating women is bad for business, and surviving this stage shows that the law can hold space for what some systems of power expect we’ll simply stuff into our bones.

I’m grateful to those who express solidarity and support toward me, and also to those who express anger and doubt me—both strengthen me.

Both confirm precisely why this work must continue.

In August 2025, as Taylor Swift announced her 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl, a darker announcement was making headlines: Donald Trump's escalating attempts to strip Washington, D.C. of its elected autonomy and bring the nation's capital under direct presidential control. The juxtaposition is surreal yet revealing. Feminine self-possession on one side, patriarchal state capture on the other. Swift's leadership, grounded in empathy, collaboration, and empowerment, offers a powerful counter-narrative to authoritarian models of power that seek to silence women and dissent.

Swift's album announcement crashed her website under global traffic as millions of fans rushed to participate in her latest cultural moment. Meanwhile, Trump's plans (disguised as "cleaning up crime" and "restoring order") would allow his administration to install loyalists, override local law, and weaponize federal power against dissent. It's a tactical escalation with chilling precedent: authoritarians often target capital cities first, centralizing control to ensure the seat of government becomes the seat of absolute power.

These events unfold against Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's 900-page blueprint for permanent retrenchment of women's rights. The plan proposes dismantling federal protections for reproductive rights, eliminating DEI programs, and rolling back civil rights enforcement under an executive branch led by "God-fearing" patriarchs. Among its most dystopian proposals are efforts to use 19th-century obscenity laws to ban abortion medication nationwide, restrict women's ability to work outside the home, and reimpose rigid gender hierarchies as moral law. Project 2025 codifies a worldview in which women's power is not only suspect, but incompatible with national stability.

The emboldening of such voices was on horrifying display in a recent CNN interview with pastor Doug Wilson, a rising figure in the Christian nationalist right. Wilson casually dismissed women's political agency, saying that women are "the kind of people that people come out of." He reduced us to vessels for reproduction rather than full participants in civic life. When pressed, he doubled down, affirming that his ideal society would repeal the 19th Amendment and reinstate male-only voting. That such views aired on mainstream media, and were amplified by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on X, reveals how emboldened patriarchal voices have become.

And then that Swift's album, centered on performance, autonomy, and glittery-feminine spectacle, emerged in a week dominated by Trump's plans for authoritarian control over D.C. and a prominent pastor advocating to strip women of voting rights reveals a deep and critical tension: feminine performance and power are locked in cultural combat with authoritarianism, representing fundamentally different models of leadership and revealing a critical path for resistance.

The Authoritarian Playbook: Silencing Women as Strategy

To understand why Swift's cultural influence matters politically, we must first examine how authoritarianism specifically targets women's voices. Misogyny and authoritarianism are, as scholars Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks wrote in Foreign Affairs, "not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills." From Benito Mussolini to Jair Bolsonaro, authoritarian leaders have promoted misogynist rhetoric and policies that maintain strict gender roles, condone violence against women, and control women's bodies. Hierarchical gender rules work in conjunction with "nationalist, top-down, male-dominated rule," creating what Meaghan Winter of Dissent Magazine calls a system designed "to make the subjugation of women look desirable, even aspirational, not only for men but also for conservative women."

This dynamic has concrete policy implications. Since 2017, at least twenty U.S. states have enacted dozens of new laws restricting public dissent, making it easier to criminalize protests and silence opposition. Such measures disproportionately affect women. Anti-abortion laws in certain states now not only ban care but effectively gag women from speaking freely about their experiences. The message is clear: stay silent, or face consequences.

These tendencies have created a chilling environment for many would-be dissenters. Women who speak power to men – whether politicians, activists, corporate leaders (my lawsuit against Meta as just one example), or pop culture figures – often face intense backlash. After the Dixie Chicks (now The Chicks) were effectively blacklisted in 2003 for criticizing George W. Bush, the country music industry pressured female artists into political silence. "I watched country music snuff [the Chicks'] candle out," Swift told The Guardian in 2019, noting how every label warned young artists "Just do not get involved [in politics], no matter what." This culture of intimidation reflects a broader authoritarian impulse: make an example of outspoken women so others stay in line.

The current moment has escalated beyond rhetoric. Trump's authoritarian ambitions now include the active rounding up and extrajudicial detention of tax-paying immigrants and dissenting civilians, with people being taken off the streets and transported to military-style detention sites without clear charges or due process. This carceral authoritarianism (complete with spectacles of domination where fear serves as both tool and message) represents tactics of a system that views dissent as an existential threat.

Defining Feminine Leadership: A Democratic Alternative

Against this backdrop of fear-based control, Taylor Swift has cultivated what research identifies as feminine leadership. This style is characterized by collaboration, emotional intelligence, transformational change, and the elevation of others rather than the consolidation of personal power. Understanding this leadership model is crucial to grasping why Swift's influence represents more than celebrity; it embodies a fundamentally different approach to power that directly challenges authoritarian structures.

Research consistently shows that women tend to lead differently than men, in ways that align closely with democratic values and resilience in times of crisis. A meta-analysis in The Leadership Quarterly found that women are more likely than men to adopt transformational leadership styles characterized by collaboration, emotional intelligence, and individualized support for others. During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries led by women (New Zealand, Germany, and Taiwan) saw lower death rates and better public trust. Women leaders are more likely to promote inclusive decision-making and focus on long-term impacts over short-term political gains, directly challenging the authoritarian impulse to centralize power and silence dissent.

A study published in Harvard Business Review found that women outscored men in nearly all leadership competencies, including integrity, initiative, and inspiring others. Women were rated as more effective in crisis management and in delivering honest, frequent communication. These qualities foster psychological safety and social trust. These strengths directly undermine the coercive, top-down leadership favored by authoritarian regimes, which depend on hierarchy, fear, and control.

Swift embodies these principles both in her business practices and cultural influence. Her approach emphasizes what scholars call "servant leadership": using power to elevate others rather than consolidate control. This model becomes politically subversive in a context where authoritarianism demands submission and silence.

Swift's Model: Empowerment Over Fear

Swift's leadership style directly counters authoritarian methods at every level. Where authoritarians demand loyalty through fear, Swift earns it through genuine empowerment and recognition of others' contributions.

Economic Democracy in Action: As an artist and businesswoman, Swift exerts unusual control over her career, departing from the traditional music industry model where young female artists are controlled by (usually male) executives. Her highly publicized battle for her master recordings became more than a business dispute. It transformed into a public crusade for artists' rights. When she finally acquired the rights to her first six albums in May 2025, after years of re-recording them to undermine the investors who had bought her catalog without her consent, she celebrated not in isolation but by acknowledging the broader impact. "Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings… because of this fight, I'm reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen," Swift wrote.

Recognition Over Exploitation: Swift's approach to leadership emphasizes gratitude and respect over intimidation. During her Eras Tour (the largest grossing concert tour in history) Swift gave over $50 million in bonuses from her own pocket to everyone working on the tour, from dancers and audio techs to truck drivers. After the U.S. leg of the tour ended, each trucker received $100,000 with a handwritten note of thanks. In an industry where underpaid crews are often invisible, Swift's gesture was more than generosity; it was a statement of values declaring that every individual's contribution matters and deserves recognition. This servant-leadership model stands in direct opposition to the authoritarian style of hoarding power and credit while demanding uncompensated loyalty.

Collaborative Engagement Over Manipulation: Swift demonstrates strategic savvy without resorting to propaganda or deception. She engages her followers through creativity and trust, treating them as intelligent partners rather than a faceless mass to be controlled. Her use of "Easter eggs" (cryptic clues planted years in advance for fans to decode) and resulting fan theories (Teen Vogue, US Weekly’s recaps) exemplifies this collaborative approach. By inviting fans to participate in solving mysteries around her announcements, Swift creates a partnership built on mutual respect and joy, utterly alien to the authoritarian demand for unthinking obedience.

Moral Courage Over Compliance: Perhaps most significantly, Swift's evolution demonstrates the power of finding one's voice in the face of pressure to remain silent. While she once avoided political engagement, her 2019 Miss Americana documentary captures a pivotal moment where she defied her all-male management team and her father, who warned that taking political stands could halve her fanbase. Visibly emotional yet resolute, Swift insisted on voicing opposition to anti-LGBTQ, anti-woman candidates, declaring she wouldn't allow harmful policies to be disguised as her state's values. This turning point (choosing principle over profit, conscience over silence) solidified a leadership ethos that directly rebukes the climate of fear authoritarianism seeks to create.

Building Community, Not Control: The Swiftie Phenomenon

The community Swift has fostered (her fans, known as Swifties) demonstrates how feminine leadership creates empowered constituencies rather than submissive followers. Where repressive leaders seek to atomize society and pit people against each other, Swift encourages connection, solidarity, and even healthy rebellion.

Organic Movement Building: The friendship bracelet phenomenon during the Eras Tour exemplifies this approach. Inspired by a lyric in "You're On Your Own, Kid" ("So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it"), tens of thousands of fans began crafting bracelets to trade with strangers at concerts. Entire arenas became zones of friendship and creativity as fans swapped beaded bracelets. Craft stores worldwide sold out of beads; one Australian supplier joked, "Taylor Swift is her own economy," after selling over 20,000 bracelets ahead of her tour dates. This wholesome phenomenon wasn't orchestrated by Swift's team. It bubbled up organically from her lyrical invitation, which she then embraced by wearing fans' handmade bracelets during shows. The message is profound: followers are not enemies or suspects (as in authoritarian states), but friends and collaborators.

From Fandom to Civic Action: Swift's relationship with her fans has translated into collective political power. After the Ticketmaster fiasco in 2022, when fans struggled with a broken ticketing system, Swift voiced sympathy with their frustration and validated their anger. That episode led to U.S. Senate hearings and calls to reform the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly, with lawmakers citing Swift's tour as a case study. A pop fandom had morphed into a consumer-rights movement, holding a corporate giant accountable through collective action. This happened not through demagoguery or coercion, but through Swift's genuine trust in her fans' intelligence and capacity for civic engagement.

“Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion,” she wrote to her fans. “You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.” -Taylor Swift

This stands in stark relief against authoritarian governments' typical fear of organic fan clubs or grassroots movements, which they see as representing power outside state control. Swift's model demonstrates how cultural leaders can foster communities that strengthen rather than threaten democratic participation.

Performance as Resistance: Reclaiming Femininity on Her Terms

Swift's visibility itself becomes a form of political resistance in a context where authoritarianism seeks to push women into private spheres and silence. At 35, Swift is arguably the most famous woman on the planet, wielding influence across entertainment, economics, and increasingly, politics. Rather than downplaying her femininity to gain acceptance in male-dominated spaces, she has methodically reclaimed the narrative of her femininity and power on her own terms.

Subverting Gender Expectations: On stage, Swift might wear princess gowns or sparkly bodysuits, commanding stadiums in outfits that unapologetically celebrate "girly" aesthetics while delivering pointed messages about equality and respect. A highlight of the Eras Tour features Swift performing "The Man" (a cutting satire of double standards) dressed in a flamboyant blazer while strutting across an office desk, acting out what it would look like if she behaved with the entitlement of a male rock star. Crowds cheer for a world where women can own their confidence without reproach. It’s a pop spectacle as cultural critique, delivered by a woman fully in charge of her image and message.

Normalizing Women's Political Evolution: Swift's personal growth has normalized the idea that women can change their minds, find their voice, and become political without apology. Once criticized for staying apolitical in her early twenties, she decisively embraced her platform when ready. In an essay for Elle Magazine, "30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30," Swift wrote that after educating herself, she realized "it actually is my responsibility to use my influence" against leaders who "invoke racism and fear… through thinly veiled messaging," calling such rhetoric "disgusting."

Her 2020 decision to directly call out Donald Trump on social media (accusing him of "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism" and warning "we will vote you out") demonstrated the power of women speaking truth to power. Rather than facing professional destruction, Swift's popularity grew, suggesting public hunger for the authenticity and courage that female leaders can exemplify. Years later, Trump—clearly still in hysterics—tweeted, “I hate Taylor Swift.”

Cultural Power as Democratic Counterforce

Swift's influence extends beyond entertainment into what could be called cultural democracy: the idea that shared meaning-making and collective joy can serve as antidotes to authoritarian attempts to divide and demoralize. Her recent album announcement, which generated massive global engagement, demonstrates how cultural moments can become spaces of democratic participation and hope.

This cultural power operates differently than traditional political power. Where authoritarianism promotes cynicism, passivity, and division, Swift's approach incites enthusiasm, engagement, and unity. Her very presence (a woman joyously commanding stadiums and social networks) challenges the narrative that power must belong to the loudest autocrat in the room. There is a different kind of power on display at a Taylor Swift concert or album countdown: the power of community, collective joy, and shared purpose.

Swift's economic influence also challenges traditional power structures. Her tours boost local economies, her endorsements move markets, and her business decisions ripple through entire industries. This represents a form of feminist economic power: wealth and influence wielded not for domination but for elevation of others and positive social change.

Conclusion: A Blueprint for Democratic Resistance

Taylor Swift is not a political savior, nor does she claim to be. But her ongoing cultural impact provides a concrete blueprint for resisting the silencing of women and democratic dissent. Her model suggests key principles for democratic leadership: lead with integrity and creativity; amplify others' voices; don't back down when principles are at stake; treat followers not as subjects to control, but as fellow humans with whom to share purpose.

In a moment when authoritarianism aims to mute and divide, Swift's approach shows how to be heard and how to bring people together. It's cultural critique meets pop spectacle, feminine leadership meets democratic practice. And it's clearly striking a chord with millions who hunger for alternatives to fear-based power.

As authoritarian forces work to shove women and dissenting voices into shadows, Swift's continued prominence and influence represent more than celebrity success. They embody proof that there are other ways to wield power, other models of leadership, and other visions of what public life can look like when women refuse to be silenced.

There’s another way.

In this cultural combat between democratic and authoritarian values, Swift's example suggests that joy, community, and feminine leadership may prove more powerful than those who seek to silence them anticipate.

As Swift embarks on her next era, one thing is certain: neither she nor her fans have any intention of calming down. They'll continue to demonstrate that in the face of authoritarianism's demand for silence, sometimes the most radical act is simply refusing to be silenced. Instead, they choose to sing loud, speak truth, and build the communities that authoritarianism fears most.

So I wrote about how pursuing the next right thing, again and again, builds a career rooted in purpose instead of position.

The essay quoted Obama on thinking in terms of what you want to do vs. who you want to be. It channeled Anna from Frozen II, finding her way through darkness one step at a time. It told the story of how I'd built my career by consistently choosing impact over title, purpose over position. How I'd walked out of pre-med when I realized I was torturing myself. How treating people fairly had always been the right business strategy.

What neither Meta's leadership nor I could have imagined then was how these same principles—the ones they asked me to evangelize—would lead me to file a civil rights lawsuit against them in King County Court that would later be moved to Federal Court. That “the next right thing” might one day include taking a stand against the very company that had asked me to write about principled leadership, guided by those exact principles.

This essay came up while chatting with Maureen Wiley Clough on last week's episode of It Gets Late Early, and I've been thinking about it since. These principles continue to guide my decisions today; they can also provide scaffolding for fractional careers, for those of us rebuilding after illness or injury, for anyone whose capacity fluctuates.

Those in power can take a lot from us. They can take our jobs, our titles, our money, they can sideline us and in many cases, silence us. But they cannot reach inside and rewire what we know to be right (although they certainly try). They can’t take your principles. As I said to Maureen in our discussion, “I don’t have f-you money… I have f-you self-worth,” which is about recognizing that money is not the only path to stand in your truth, although it certainly helps. I’d be remiss to not acknowledge that while sticking to my values and principles, I’m also being supported by doctors, psychologists, occupational therapists, child care providers, house cleaners, friends and family members. Much of this is expensive.

“F-you” self worth means that I’m willing to accept losing whatever it takes to stay true to myself.

And “the next right thing" isn't foolproof, it’s not guaranteed success. The framework doesn't prevent mistakes, but it gives a way forward when you make them. I have learned that even the biggest mistakes are easier to bear when you know you made the best choice you could possibly make with your existing circumstances and skillset. Because with all the highs and lows come learning, insight, growth, and new tools as we ask again, what’s the next right thing?

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Originally published internally at Meta in late 2020, slightly shortened and now with an AI-generated image:

Growing from the Gut: What Obama, Anna of Arendelle, and I have to say about leading from within

by Kelly Stonelake

What happens when we relieve the pressure to define the next milestone in our careers, and allow ourselves the freedom to ask what we actually want to be doing? How do we want to spend our time?

“Worry less about what you want to be, and think more about what you want to do. Because this town is full of people who want to be a congressman or want to be a senator or want to be president. And if that’s your focus, if that’s your moral compass, then you’re consistently going to be making decisions solely on the basis of how do I get, for me, what I want. If you think in terms of what do I want to do? ‘I want to solve climate change’ or ‘I want to employ disadvantaged youth’ or ‘I want to fix a broken healthcare system’, then even if you don’t get to the place you wanted to be or the office you wanted, during that entire time you’re going to be working on stuff that’s real and getting stuff done…You'll do great things.”

-President Obama

Phrased differently:

Worry less about what you want to be, and more about what you want to do.
Because this company is full of people who want to be a director or a VP or a CEO at their next gig. And if that's your focus, if that's your moral compass, then you're consistently going to be making decisions on the basis of how do I get, for me, what I want.

If you think in terms of what do I want to do? "I want to connect people to businesses in a meaningful way" or "I want to help others discover their potential and flourish" or "I want to change the way people consume video around the world", then even if you don't get to the place you wanted to be or the title you wanted, as Obama says, “you’ll do great things.”

What things, though? If we go beyond Washington for our inspiration, yes all the way to Arendelle, Anna descends into a darkness and uncertainty when her sister, Elsa, and snowman friend, Olaf, are missing. She wants to find them. Her process? The next right thing.

"This next choice is one that I can make / So I'll walk through this night / Stumbling blindly toward the light / And do the next right thing / And, with it done, what comes then? / When it's clear that everything will never be the same again / Then I'll make the choice to hear that voice / And do the next right thing"

-Anna, Frozen II

When I heard this song, on my couch, surrounded by my 3 young children captivated and silent for the first time in what seemed like a year, I had an epiphany. This is the anthem of my career!

From the time I was a little girl, I had two goals. I wanted to go to Harvard, and I wanted to be a Doctor. As a child, I did not deviate from this plan or proclamation once. It wasn't until I was sitting in a pre-med Organic Chemistry class that it hit me like a stack of textbooks - I'm going to spend the next 6 years studying this stuff that makes me feel miserable? How do I want to spend my time? I knew the answer. I stood up and walked out in the middle of that class.

Rewind a few years, I was 14 years old and sitting in the living room of the basement apartment my mom and I rented. I watched the pile of bills surround her, pushing around papers and pushing away tears as she made desperate phone calls. Emboldened by a mix of empathy and panic, I opened Craigslist and searched in the "gig" section. A couple days later, I spent my Saturday handing out brochures for a window treatment company at a mall and made $80. It covered our electric bill.

Soon I was doing this work every weekend. I learned the difference between products of quality and not. And companies of quality and not. In addition to being ethical and customer first, the best companies treated their contractors well. They paid the standard 20% agency fee on top of the talent fee, so when we worked for the best companies, we went home with the full fee instead of the typical talent cut of 80%. Soon, I realized that $15 toward a business license meant that I could effectively be my own agent and guarantee I'd always take home either the full talent fee, or the fee + 20%, depending on the client.

When a job surfaced and I was booked (or in high school), I'd recruit friends and the best people I'd met on other jobs. I only took the agent's fee if the client paid it on top, so when people worked for me, they always took the full fee.

If I had set out to "be" the owner of a successful talent company, I probably would've focused on maximizing profit for growth… how to achieve maximum client satisfaction with minimal cost, or talent fee and quality. But I was going to be a doctor, of course, so I wasn't focused on creating a talent empire. I was motivated by what I wanted to do: find fun, flexible work to support my family, and to create similar opportunities for others. I believed that creating values for others was also good for me and my business.

I continued making decisions based off the next right thing and graduated high school with a rolodex of hundreds of contractors and a thriving talent business that had morphed into a marketing consultancy. Managing event talent had accidentally put me in the center of the marketing process—it gave me the privilege of visibility. Of both reading the briefs from my clients, and then leading the teams that executed these assignments in malls and concerts and festivals around the country.

Sometimes I saw failed, laughable execution plans that we scrambled to put lipstick on, at the hands of something I call "boardroom marketing" - the effect when executives sit in their office buildings deciding what consumers who often look and live nothing like them want. Too often the absence of insights and ideas. Really, you don’t want to stop your holiday shopping to play shoot ‘em hoops at the mall for a chance to win a small discount on a phone carrier you’d never consider anyway? This front-row seat spawned an insatiable curiosity about consumer motivations and barriers, and how we can build big ideas and products that speak to these, generate business, and create value for everyone.

This was the spark that ignited the career I have today.

I started giving feedback to my clients and sharing ideas for how to improve. In doing this 'next right thing' and engaging in a way that wasn’t socially sanctioned, I built deep client trust and received an invaluable business education from executives from TMobile, XBOX, Budweiser, and Starbucks. When this work led to an opportunity to support higher education marketing via Apple’s Campus Rep program, I jumped at it. I could work remotely with a flexible schedule, which meant I was able to keep doing what I loved while getting the degree I needed. Because I still wanted to be… a doctor?!

I made it this far into my journey as a literal teenage prodigy businesswoman without reevaluating my own ambitions? How?! I’d separated who I wanted to “be” and what I wanted to “do” in a way that was setting me up for disappointment. My understanding of "growth" was a fixed definition of a future I had planned, even though the fulfilling career of my dreams was right in front of me. I walked straight from that Organic Chemistry class and into the marketing department to change my major.

In 2008, Dave Morin, a force in Silicon Valley and my former manager from Apple called to say that if I didn't join him at Facebook on the Developer Platform team, we'd both regret it. He was right. I've spent the last nearly 12 years saying yes to the next right thing at Facebook, all the way back to Developer Platform last month. And my goodness, did we all get lucky, because this place has to be the best company in the world to take both Obama and Anna's advice.

So, I'll ask again.

What would happen if you relieved the pressure to define the next milestone in your career? What if instead of where you want to be 6 months from now, you asked what you wanted to be doing for the next 6 months?

Leading from this place gifts us with the ability to coach ourselves and others to pay attention to our intuition, to the compass within, on the next project, question, or role. Growth from the gut.

What do you want to do? What's the next right thing?

Listen to the Full IGLE Episode!

Today’s interview on the podcast It Gets Late Early is a discussion about what I experienced inside Meta and what it cost me. We talk about the gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit I filed after 15 years working at Meta, yes, and also about the deeper truths I’ve come to understand through this process: tactics of toxic corporate culture, how women and neurodivergent people are punished for resisting, and how accountability is structurally suppressed.

Themes emerged that now feel like a glimpse into how power protects itself, how it weaponizes our deepest vulnerabilities against us, and why speaking truth requires not just courage but privilege most people don't have.

I’ve not stopped thinking about some of these themes since my conversation with Maureen, and I’m sharing several below with direct quotes from the interview and additional thoughts.

Theme #1: Corporate Coercive Control

"I used to proudly say that they were going to take me out of the company on a stretcher one day and without any idea of how toxic and problematic that was." Listen to full episode

For fifteen years, I wore my corporate loyalty like a badge of honor. I genuinely believed I was part of something meaningful, shaping the future of the internet, connecting people, making the world more open. When I said they'd have to “carry me out on a stretcher,” I meant that I planned to work there so long, I’d die at my desk an old lady. I thought I was expressing dedication, but I was experiencing an abusive relationship.

I stayed for the same reason many people stay: I was in love. I fell in love with one entity, and as it gradually became something else, believed I could make it better. And the deeper I got, the more tangled that belief became with my own identity. I had a deep sense of duty to an organization that I fundamentally believed would do the right thing by people. When public criticism surfaced about the company, I rationalized paying the news less attention than it deserved. Surely these were problems being evaluated and addressed by the smartest people and the most values-driven business, right?

That rationalization was part of the toxicity, something I don’t offer to excuse but to explain. I blindly believed in the company until I was expected to cast children's safety and women’s careers aside so that men and Meta could make more money.

"It's a real shame to be a company who can fly drones over Africa on the promise of giving people access to Facebook and the internet, but can't figure out how to make a VR video game safe for children to not be interacting directly with predators." Listen to full episode

We had the resources and technical capability to do incredible things. We could literally fly internet-delivering drones across continents. But when it came to basic child safety in Horizon Worlds, preventing racist harassment, stopping predators from accessing children, suddenly the problems became too complex, too expensive, too scary.

This is how abusive relationships work: they train you to celebrate the grand gestures while ignoring the daily harm.

The company I thought I was building my life around didn't actually exist. The mission-driven, values-based organization was a means to an end. The drones flying over Africa become proof of good intentions while children facing predators in VR, and a myriad of other harms, was treated like an unfortunate trade-off.

Theme #2: Women Are Expected to Absorb

"As women, we are trained to take on the discomfort of those around us, which is what they were counting on that I would just continue doing that." Listen to full episode

One of the most insidious aspects of workplace discrimination is how it weaponizes women's socialization against us. From childhood, women are taught to make others comfortable by internalizing problems.

When I raised concerns about child safety and racist harassment in Horizon Worlds, the otherwise all-male leadership team deflected by telling me to "shut up" a female colleague to prove my worth; she was raising legitimate product quality and safety concerns. When I refused, I was denied access to leadership meetings and information I needed to do my job.

In my conversation with Maureen, I reflect on how my lawsuit documents a fifteen-year pattern where everything from my body being violated by supervisors to my brain being dismissed in meetings was part of the same systemic disregard for women.

They were counting on me to absorb that treatment silently. They expected me to internalize the shame of their failures, to carry the emotional weight of their harmful decisions, to protect their comfort at the expense of my own well-being and even my salary when I was told I wouldn’t be recognized for my achievements due to the ways it would expose senior male leaders.

"I am done turning my anger inward. Women have carried the shame of men for too long. And I say, I should say those at the margins have carried the shame of those in power for a long time, and I'm learning how to share." Listen to full episode

This pattern extends far beyond individual workplaces. Systems of oppression maintain themselves by training those with less power to absorb the consequences of those with more power, to protect the comfort of those who benefit from the status quo.

Theme #3: Neurodivergent Burnout Isn’t “Burnout”

"I'm autistic, and have ADHD, and I really experienced a significant and shocking loss of my ability to, at the beginning, speak, get out of bed, and that is such a confounding experience."

What I experienced at Meta wasn't a single traumatic event but getting knocked down over and over, causing a stepwise erosion of my capacity to function. Autistic burnout is not typical burnout—something I didn’t know before experiencing it. It's a complete system shutdown that can take months to years to recover from. I lost skills I'd relied on my entire life: the ability to organize thoughts, to speak consistently and coherently, to regulate my emotional responses to unexpected stressors, to manage any amount of interpersonal ambiguity. For someone whose identity had been built around competence and achievement, this disintegration was devastating.

I was very honest with Maureen about how dark this period became with the hope that it decreases shame and increases awareness of resources for others similarly suffering.

"I carried around the crumpled up study on outcomes for kids whose parents die by suicide. Spoiler alert, it's better to be a shitty parent than to die by suicide." Listen to full episode

Companies increasingly recognize the value that neurodivergent employees bring—our pattern recognition, systems thinking, uncommon care, and intense focus—but they rarely acknowledge the heightened risks we face in toxic environments. There's little awareness that the same traits that make us valuable also make us more vulnerable to burnout that goes far beyond typical work stress.

For anyone struggling with similar experiences or interested in self-education as a form of self-protection, Dr. Megan Anna Neff's research on autistic burnout recovery has been invaluable. She teaches that healing comes through embracing autistic identity rather than fighting it, finding spaces where autistic traits are valued rather than pathologized, and developing genuine self-acceptance instead of constantly striving for neurotypical presentation.

Theme #4: Remorse Requires Repair

Some people look at my story and think: here's another privileged tech worker who got rich off the system and now wants to burn it down when it turned on her.

I don’t see my Meta-augmented privilege as a reason to stay quiet about the harms I witnessed, but as a reason why I must speak up.

The people with the most to lose, without financial cushions, healthcare access, or career alternatives, are suppressed through economic coercion. NDAs, severance packages, and the threat of industry blacklisting ensure that the voices most likely to expose harm are also the most vulnerable to retaliation.

And similarly, the pattern of silencing women who speak up about harm isn't unique to tech or to director-level positions. It happens to nurses who report patient safety violations, to teachers who expose inadequate resources, to retail workers who call out wage theft, to women at every level in every industry.

My silence wouldn’t benefit any of them, but it would benefit Meta.

"If I spend every dollar I have left, which I probably will, on this lawsuit, and I am left with nothing. Well, guess what? I will figure it out. Right now, I know that this is exactly what I need to be doing to reconcile the role I played in the hyper growth of a company that harms people." Listen to full episode

For 15 years, I helped build a company that I now understand causes significant harm, particularly to vulnerable populations, like children, women, disabled people, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and more. I convinced people to work there and literally wrote internal essays on request of the leadership to boost morale and dedication.

My healing requires acknowledging that complicity and taking responsibility for repair, which means doing everything within my capacity to actively reconcile the role I played in the hypergrowth of a company that causes harm, including exposing and providing sworn statements to the FTC on Meta’s illegal, harmful practices and advocating for protections for kids online.

"There's no way for me to reconcile silence when I have my health and my life because of my privilege. And I don't know about you, but that really fires me up, because that's not just.” Listen to full episode

Recovering has been extremely political. I survived because I had resources: access to mental healthcare, the ability to take extended medical leave, the financial ability to reject Meta's severance package. Many people facing what I faced don't have those privileges. As such, repairing is political, too.

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What emerges from these four themes is a clearer picture of how corporate power can operate: not through dramatic villains making obviously evil decisions (although, sometimes that), but through systems that normalize harm while making resistance nearly impossible.

By the time someone has both the knowledge and freedom necessary to speak truth to power, they've usually either been damaged or privileged enough to absorb the consequences.

The genius of corporate coercive control is that it doesn't just silence critics, it creates conditions where potential critics silence themselves. When your identity becomes inseparable from your employer's success, when speaking up means shame, when the cost of truth-telling might include financial ruin, most rational people choose silence.

The system is designed to ensure that the people most capable of exposing its failures are also the most invested in its success, the most vulnerable to its retaliation, or the most broken by its processes. Understanding this isn't about assigning blame to those who stay quiet—it's about recognizing that systemic change requires dismantling the mechanisms that make speaking up a luxury only the privileged can afford.

Well, it was inconvenient for those in power.

Juneteenth reminds us that the delay between what leaders say and what everyone else experiences is still everywhere today, wherever inequitable systems of power persist. I’ve worked in corporate systems that say all the right words about inclusion, impact, equity. I've watched the same systems reward the appearance of progress while resisting the substance of it, and I’ve seen clearly who these systems hurt the most. Black women are often the first to speak up or step out when something’s not right. Often the most overqualified, under-supported people in the room.

My Black colleagues were often the ones asked to lead change and then blamed when the system wasn't actually willing to change.

A 2021 study by Lean In and McKinsey found that Black women are more likely than any other group of employees to spend substantial time on DEI efforts outside their formal job description and to openly call out bias at work, and many note they step up because they know that if they don’t, these issues might never be addressed. Tying the double bind tightly, another 2016 study found that when leaders supported diversity in the workplace, their bosses and peers perceived them as less competent compared to leaders who did not actively support diversity—but only if they were women and/or people of color.

White men were able to support diversity and equity initiatives without negative impact to their perceived competence, and yet the burden fell on those most likely to be hurt by the inequity and shoulder consequences for speaking up about it.

After public reckonings over racial injustice (for example, the 2020 corporate responses to George Floyd’s murder), many companies rushed to showcase commitment to diversity by hiring or promoting Black women into leadership roles, many of them DEI roles. While this looked like progress, it often amounted to Black women being placed on what researchers call a “glass cliff,” “a phenomenon where women and people of color are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions during periods of organizational crisis compared to those of stability and growth.”

Juneteenth isn’t just a celebration of what was won, although we must celebrate that, too. It’s a reminder to pay attention to what’s still being withheld: freedom, safety, justice, truth.

And from whom?

Who benefits?

“I’ll say the quiet part out loud. There’s no business reason; it’s bigotry.

When Zuckerberg calls for more 'masculine energy' while simultaneously dismantling DEI programs, he’s not just dog-whistling misogyny—he’s doubling down on the interconnected systems of racism and patriarchy that keep power firmly in place for people like him. It's the undertow of regression.

Data indisputably supports gender, ethnic, and cultural diversity in corporate leadership. Representation across these factors is proven to significantly increase the likelihood of financial outperformance.”

The Privilege of Telling the Truth

When I spoke up—about safety failures, about retaliation, about the gap between what Meta says and what they actually do—it was made possible by privilege. I had a title. I had resources. I had years of outstanding performance ratings. Yes, it has come at a huge cost—but at least I've been taken seriously, at least I have power, at least I have a voice. I’ve watched Black women do the same thing and get written off entirely.

There’s a reason many of the prominent tech whistleblowers are blonde, white women. It’s not because we’re more brave. It’s because of privilege, layers and layers of it. Research backs up the idea that privilege, not greater bravery, often determines who is heard, protected, and believed when they blow the whistle.

Black women face barrier after barrier to even get into the role or the room in the first place, then the challenge of staying in it while being underestimated, interrupted, and discounted more than any other group. And then, somehow, Black women are still the ones tasked with fixing the culture.

I think about what happened at Pinterest, when Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks raised concerns about pay inequity and discrimination. Pinterest didn’t meet their courage with accountability, instead Ozoma and Banks describe facing racist comments and retaliation, while Pinterest settled lawsuits with other senior leaders.

Still, of course, they work to help others.

Why am I writing about Transgender youth on Juneteenth? Because we are not free until everyone is free. Because the surviving and thriving of humanity—liberty and justice for all—are tied up together. Because I can’t be fully who I am intended to be until you are fully who you are intended to be.

- Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis

So no, the delay isn’t over. Juneteenth reminds us of that distance, it asks us to celebrate what was won, and also to get honest about what’s still being withheld: freedom, safety, justice, truth.

We’re told we live in a place that’s equal, but we don’t. Today is a good day to recognize that pretending we do causes harm to those who can’t pretend. Today is a day to notice that there's a gap between the world we say we live in and what many of us experience. And to ask better of ourselves, the places we work, the systems we uphold, and the stories we tell.

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But the details of what Bates experienced, reported this week in The Guardian’s “Misogyny in the metaverse: is Mark Zuckerberg’s dream world a no-go area for women?” read like a psychological horror story written by someone who had studied every form of gendered violence and asked: "What if we could make this immersive?" She heard players shouting, "I'm dragging my balls all over your mother's face," and witnessed male players making claims about "beating off" and comments about "gang bangs." Her virtual avatar's breasts were commented on repeatedly. When she wrote "HAVE YOU BEEN ASSAULTED IN THE METAVERSE?" on a blackboard, the responses were immediate: "Yeah, many times," and "I think everybody's been assaulted in the damn metaverse."

Most tellingly, she witnessed no moderation. There was no action taken by either moderators or other players to stop the abuse.

Welcome to Zuck’s vision of “masculine energy.”

The findings are disturbing, but they're not surprising. They're the logical outcome of building products in environments that systematically dismiss the people most equipped to predict these problems. They’re the misogynistic product of a misogynistic culture.

A Pattern of Systemic Disregard for Women

As someone who spent nearly 15 years at Meta, including as Director of Product Marketing for Horizon Worlds, I lived this pattern firsthand. The misogyny that would define user experiences in the metaverse was already defining employee experiences in the company's meeting rooms.

The gendered dynamics were impossible to ignore. In my sworn statement to the FTC supporting Fairplay's complaint, I detailed how a room full of male executives knew children under 13 were accessing Horizon Worlds using adult accounts. During executive "playtests" starting in October 2022, leadership struggled to communicate over "very young, high-pitched children's voices screaming at us from behind adult accounts." Their solution wasn't to address the child safety crisis—it was to move future testing to private spaces so they wouldn't be "bothered by underage users."

When I flagged these issues, I wasn't met with urgency to fix the problems. I was first asked to silence another senior woman surfacing concerns. When I wouldn't, I was retaliated against.

This was an escalation of a pattern I observed as women challenged the dominant narrative at Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Early in my career, I was told to act “less smart” in meetings so I wouldn’t threaten male colleagues. I was sexually assaulted by a boss on a business trip and later told to have sex with him for a promotion.

As I moved more into leadership, the stakes got higher, but the pattern stayed the same. I was denied promotions because acknowledging my success would have required acknowledging a man’s failure. When I raised safety risks, product performance issues, or violations of public policy, that was the new issue.

As I wrote in “Stonelake v. Meta":

“When I raised the problem, I became the problem – a pattern that silences women everywhere, every day. I’ve been sexually assaulted by a boss on a business trip. I’ve been denied promotions because acknowledging my success meant acknowledging men’s failures. I’ve been told to act “less smart,” I’ve been retaliated against for doing my job.

Some of you are shocked because you had no idea these things happened – some of you are shocked because you had no idea we could be honest about it.”

These weren’t isolated incidents. They were the logic of a masculine, misogynistic system that rewards aggression over insight, growth over safety, and loyalty to power over accountability to the people we claimed to serve. What happened in Horizon Worlds was the inevitable outcome of a workplace where women’s fastest route out is telling the truth.

This is a Groundhog Day-like “demo day” for a system built on misogyny. The same leadership that dismissed women's concerns about harassment in the office was building a product that would dismiss women's reports of harassment online. The executives who excluded women from decision-making meetings were creating virtual spaces where women would be excluded from safe participation. The culture that treated women's safety as a distraction from business goals was coding that priority directly into the metaverse.

As I shared with TechCrunch:

“I thought that as I got more and more senior … I would only be able to protect more people to change the culture,” said Stonelake. “My experience was that the more senior I got, so did my peers, and I noticed that the more senior men were, the less tolerance they had to be challenged.”

When Meta's community guides instructed children not to reveal their ages—attempting to protect the company from the consequences of COPPA violations rather than protecting the children from predators—they were following the same logic that governed how the company treated internal whistleblowers: silence the inconvenient truth, not the harmful behavior.

The Pattern Exists Across Platforms and Time

This isn't Meta's first safety crisis, and the warning signs have been visible for years. Bates work builds on investigations by the BBC, which found children accessing virtual strip clubs in VR with minimal age barriers, and reporting by The Washington Post, which documented Meta's "hands-off" approach to metaverse moderation under the philosophy that users should "protect themselves."

As early as 2022, Kashmir Hill's reporting for The New York Times documented the overwhelming presence of children in Horizon Worlds, despite the platform's 18+ age requirement. During one visit, she met an 11-year-old named Dustin who had spent eight straight hours in the metaverse the day before. When Hill played a zombie-shooting game, she exclaimed about the tiny zombies: "They're little kids!" Dustin replied, "So am I."

Frances Haugen's whistleblower revelations showed how Instagram's algorithms amplified content that harmed teenage girls' mental health, and how internal research documenting this harm was ignored. Arturo Bejar testified to Congress about his unsuccessful attempts to get Meta to address harassment that made his own teenage daughter afraid to post photos online.

Most recently, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Meta's former Director of Public Policy, has detailed through Senate testimony and her memoir Careless People how safety concerns were routinely overridden by growth priorities, including detailing how Meta’s behavioral targeting offerings included selling teen’s most insecure moments to beauty advertisers.

Late last year, Wired detailed a metaverse overrun by children. And Fairplay's recent FTC Request for Investigation, including my 14-page testimony, documents how Meta knowingly allowed children under 13 into Horizon Worlds, collecting their data and exposing them to the exact harms Bates witnessed.

Each of these cases shares a common thread: people inside the company saw the problems coming. They raised concerns. They were dismissed, sidelined, or pushed out. And in each of these cases, the concerns were being raised by women or about women, demonstrating that misogyny isn't just encoded in Meta's products, but embedded in the company's decision-making process itself.

The Real-World Impact

What Bates discovered is causing documented psychological trauma. She notes that when British police investigated the virtual gang-rape of a girl under 16 in the metaverse, a senior officer said the child "experienced psychological trauma similar to that of someone who has been physically raped."

The immersive nature of VR makes this harm more intense. As Bates explains, advanced technology like 3D audio, hand tracking, and haptic feedback combine to make virtual experiences feel real. Your avatar moves and speaks when you do, meaning virtual assault can trigger the same physiological responses as physical assault.

Research Bates cites shows users were exposed to abusive behavior every seven minutes in the metaverse, with repeated instances of children being subjected to sexually explicit abuse. In one case documented by researchers, an adult asked a young user, "Do you have a cock in your mouth?" while another shouted "I don't want to cum on you" at a group of underage girls who had explicitly identified themselves as minors.

The NSPCC data that Bates references—showing 47% of online grooming offenses in the UK occur on Meta platforms—provides crucial context for understanding the stakes. I wrote earlier this week about the mounting list of harms that kids are up against on social platforms. These aren't abstract policy debates; they're about real children facing real harm in spaces that could be designed to protect them.

Importantly, misogyny thrives in these spaces much as it has on traditional online platforms. A 2018 study found that 49% of female VR users had already experienced at least one instance of sexual harassment in virtual environments. Activists note that gender-based harassment in VR is a direct extension of the abuse women face on social media and online games, now amplified by immersion. “Misogyny is alive and well in the metaverse,” writes Moira Donegan for Elle magazine, observing that virtual reality has simply become “a breeding ground for harassment” despite early hopes for a new world.

Academic research increasingly shows that misogyny in digital platforms is not incidental but systemic. A recent study analyzing over 10,000 user reviews across social VR platforms found that reports of sexual harassment were both widespread and psychologically impactful, with women describing embodied violations such as groping or proximity-based intimidation that triggered real-world trauma responses due to the immersive nature of VR. Researchers observed that even with available safety tools, platforms like Meta’s Horizon Worlds often placed the burden of safety on the user rather than on systemic protections (Liao et al., 2022, Sabri et al., 2023).

Meanwhile, foundational scholarship like Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression (2018) focuses on search engines but nevertheless explains how platforms reflect and perpetuate social biases through the choices made in engineering, moderation, and prioritization.

Together, journalism and research show that the harms faced by women in Meta’s metaverse—rampant harassment, lack of recourse, and psychological harm—are not just the product of bad actors, but of design systems that normalize and even incentivize the marginalization of women and other vulnerable users.

Asking for Help, Finding Silence

When the exodus of senior women from my organization reached a crisis point, I made one final attempt to get help from leadership. In early 2023, I reached out to Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, Meta's CTO, someone I had respected and who had shown me kindness in the past.

"I'm concerned that I continue to see senior women leaving in droves…” I wrote, before explaining. "I have never had women on my team observe the boy's club dynamic, be crushed by it, and ask if they should factor this dynamic into their career track here… From a business standpoint, I lose confidence that we will be able to be successful with this level of organizational toxicity."

Boz's response was telling: "My staff is one-third women as it has been for some time and while we have lost women from that group we have added them in equal measure." The message was clear: women are interchangeable. Our experiences don't matter as long as the numbers look good on paper.

He promised to "follow up on" my concerns about the women who had left. He never did.

This exchange perfectly captures how gender bias operates in tech: when confronted with systemic problems, leadership points to representation statistics while ignoring the actual issues, usually because they personally benefit from the systems enabling the dysfunction.

It's a masterclass in what I’ll call "statistical deflection"—using numbers to obscure rather than illuminate reality. When Susan Fowler exposed rampant sexual harassment at Uber, leadership's initial response wasn't to address the toxic culture she described, but to announce new diversity hiring initiatives. When Ellen Pao detailed systematic discrimination at Kleiner Perkins, the firm's defense centered on how many women they had hired rather than how those women were actually treated within the organization.

Beyond Individual Bad Actors

What looks like isolated product failures is actually evidence organizational dysfunction. When diverse perspectives are marginalized internally, that marginalization gets encoded into the products themselves.

This pattern matters because it reveals how internal dysfunction becomes external harm. The same culture that dismissed women's concerns about workplace safety was designing products that would dismiss women's safety online. The executives who excluded women from leadership meetings were building platforms where women would be excluded from safe participation.

Without meaningful processes to elevate these perspectives, organizations default to amplifying the most confident voices rather than the most informed ones. And they build products that reflect their internal blind spots.

This requires understanding systems. When Bates asked Meta for comment on her metaverse investigation, they didn't respond. When harassment victims try to report abuse through Meta's complaint system, research shows the vast majority of reports go unacknowledged. The same pattern of non-engagement appears in how the company handles internal dissent. The message is consistent: the people experiencing harm—whether users or employees—are not credible sources of information about that harm.

As reported by Laura Bates in The Guardian:

What was even more revealing than the virtual assault itself was Meta’s response. Vivek Sharma, then vice-president of Horizon at Meta, responded to the incident by telling the Verge it was “absolutely unfortunate”. After Meta reviewed the incident, he claimed, it determined that the beta tester didn’t use the safety features built into Horizon Worlds, including the ability to block someone from interacting with you. “That’s good feedback still for us because I want to make [the blocking feature] trivially easy and findable,” he continued.

This response was revealing. First, the euphemistic description of the event as “unfortunate”, which made it sound on a par with poor sound quality. Second, the immediate shifting of the blame and responsibility on to the person who experienced the abuse – “she should have been using certain tools to prevent it” – rather than an acknowledgment that it should have been prevented from happening in the first place. And, finally, most importantly, the description of a woman being abused online as “good feedback”.

This creates a feedback loop where the organization becomes increasingly deaf to the signals that could help it course-correct. Warning systems break down. Safety becomes an afterthought. And products launch with predictable harms baked in.

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Building Better Systems

The technology industry likes to talk about innovation and disruption. But the most important disruption might be the simplest: building companies that actually listen to the people most likely to understand the problems they're trying to solve.

Creating safer products requires creating safer internal cultures—environments where people feel safe to raise concerns, where diverse perspectives are actively sought rather than reluctantly tolerated, where disagreement isn't treated like disloyalty.

Men Yell at Me

A woman is good at her job. And she suffers for it.

Kelly Stonelake was hired by Facebook in 2009. It was a dream job. She’d been directly recruited to work at the buzzy tech company by Dave Morin, a co-creator of the Facebook platform. In her role as a marketing specialist she helped to build the platform allowed developers to build their own third-party apps for the site. Remember when Facebook had gam…

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a year ago · 714 likes · 17 comments · lyz

The Legislative and Cultural Crossroads

We're at a critical juncture where two essential questions will determine whether the next generation of digital spaces will encode a disregard for women and other vulnerable groups:

1. Will we finally legislate meaningful safety protections for vulnerable groups?

2. Will we stop the systematic erosion of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs just when we need them most?

The timing couldn't be more urgent. As Meta pours billions into building the metaverse, lawmakers are considering comprehensive digital safety legislation that could require platforms to design with child safety as a default rather than an afterthought. The Kids Online Safety Act represent first steps toward protecting kids against the harms Bates documented.

But these legislative efforts are happening alongside a broader corporate retreat from DEI initiatives—the very programs designed to ensure that diverse voices are heard in product development.

When companies dismantle the systems that elevate concerns from women, parents, and marginalized communities, they're removing the early warning systems that could prevent the next safety crisis.

The people most likely to predict how a product might harm children or enable harassment are often the same people whose perspectives get sidelined when DEI programs are defunded or dismantled. This isn't just about fairness—it's about effectiveness.

The women who raised alarms about Instagram's impact on teen girls, the women who flagged child safety gaps in Horizon Worlds, the advocates who documented harassment patterns across platforms—these weren't diversity hires making emotional appeals. They were canaries in the coal mine, providing essential input about product risks that homogeneous leadership teams consistently failed to see.

As Bates concluded her investigation, she noted we risk "sleepwalking into virtual spaces where men's entitlement to women's bodies is once again widespread and normalized with near total impunity." We don't have to sleepwalk. We have the data, the research, the whistleblower accounts, and the investigative reporting to see exactly what’s happening, where it’s rooted, and how it’s growing.

The question isn't whether these harms are predictable—they are. The question isn’t whether Meta can respond to them—they can. The real question is whether we'll have the legislative frameworks and internal diversity necessary to ensure those systems actually work.

Recommended Reading:

• Laura Bates' The Guardian investigation: "Misogyny in the metaverse: is Mark Zuckerberg's dream world a no-go area for women?"

• Kashmir Hill's New York Times investigation: "This Is Life in the Metaverse"

• The Washington Post's reporting: “Meta doesn’t want to police the metaverse. Kids are paying the price.”

• Fairplay's FTC Request for Investigation of Meta Platforms, Inc. for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in Horizon Worlds

• Frances Haugen's Senate testimony and the WSJ coverage of her leaked documents

• Sarah Wynn-Williams' Senate testimony and memoir Careless People

• Arturo Bejar’s Senate testimony and written testimony

• The Times’ coverage: “Why I fear Mark Zuckerberg — after 15 years of working for him”

• Fortune’s coverage: “Kelly Stonelake landed her dream job at Meta. 15 years later she’s suing the company alleging sexual assaults, denied promotions, and a deeply embedded culture of discrimination”

• Lyz’s coverage “A woman is good at her job. And she suffers for it.”

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Related Essays:

A couple of weeks ago, an emergency board meeting was called. It was a sobering, stark contrast to our 25th Anniversary Gala, where we celebrated a quarter century of impact with a packed ballroom, hundreds of handwritten thank you notes from CSF students, and speakers like former Washington Governor Gary Locke, Costco Co-Founder Jim Sinegal, and Washington State Senator and CSF graduate, Yasmin Trudeau.

A few weeks later, we’re on a Teams call, shocked.

CSF, like so many nonprofits, is facing catastrophic funding cuts. As Dahlia Bazzaz reports in the Seattle Times, CSF has lost more than $12 million in state funding and is being forced to “shrink its staff from 150 to 54, gutting its ability to counsel students from their middle school years up until college graduation.”

The magnitude of this loss is hard to overstate. CSF isn’t just a scholarship provider, but a hands-on support system for low-income and first-gen students from middle school through college. Slashing our staff by nearly two-thirds means 20,000 students will lose trusted adults who walk alongside them through FAFSA, applications, college transitions, and crises.

Decreasing access to education is not what our communities need right now. Protecting education is protecting our community’s ability to think critically.

And it’s not just education in crisis. It’s not just CSF.

CSF's crisis reflects a broader pattern devastating nonprofits nationwide. Nonprofits across sectors are being gutted while demand for their services soars.

In March 2025, the Trump Administration announced it was clawing back ~$11–12 billion in pandemic‐related public health grants. Reuters reports HHS canceled “around $12 billion” in CDC and SAMHSA grants to state and local health departments. Senator Patty Murray noted over $160 million cut from Washington state alone. In April 2025, the Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford, joined 23 states in suing HHS over its abrupt termination of $12 billion in public health grants.

Government funding is stretching and vanishing as need increases. They call it a “matter of margins” while those on the margins drift further away.

The Consequences of Defunding Nonprofits

Cutting funding for nonprofits often eliminates programs that save taxpayers money in the long term. A wealth of research shows that every dollar invested in preventive and supportive services yields multiple dollars in economic returns.

When nonprofits shutter, the consequences ripple far beyond a single organization. These closures often begin a domino effect that hits the most vulnerable hardest. Many nonprofit workers, already earning modest wages, suddenly find themselves unemployed, without a safety net, and in need of the services—housing aid, mental health support, food assistance, youth programming—that were cut with their jobs.

• Early Childhood Education: Investments in high-quality early learning can return as much as $7 for every $1 spent, thanks to improved health outcomes, higher lifetime earnings, and reduced need for social support.

• Afterschool & Summer Programs: Rigorous state-level studies find at least $3 to $12 in savings to taxpayers for every $1 invested in afterschool programs. A recent analysis in Pennsylvania showed a $6.69 return per $1 by reducing high school dropouts, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, and crime. In other words, funding afterschool activities now means lower costs for remedial education, law enforcement, and public assistance later.

• Youth Mentoring and Graduation: One analysis calculated that every $1 invested in a youth program can benefit society by about $10.51. This 10-to-1 payoff doesn’t even count the additional savings if that student avoids incarceration or chronic unemployment. Keeping a teenager on track through graduation is among the most cost-effective public investments we can make.

When we pull those dollars back, we don't save. We shift the cost somewhere else. And it usually lands on ERs, public schools, police departments, and families already stretched thin. One study found that stable housing for chronically homeless individuals can save cities up to $29,000 per person per year in reduced emergency costs.

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In Washington state, proposed 2025–27 budgets would eliminate nearly all public school grants that support at-risk youth. For example, Treehouse – a Seattle nonprofit serving students in foster care – relies on about 65% of its program funding from state education grants. With those grants slated for cuts, its CEO warns in an interview with Everett Herald that it will have to “cut back its work” serving vulnerable youth. Similarly, the Ninth Grade Success program (supporting high-needs 9th graders) would lose a $3 million grant, jeopardizing gains in graduation rates.

Nonprofits in affordable housing and community development are facing cuts to federal funding. A national Shelterforce April 2025 report details how Trump‐era HUD cuts slashed technical‐assistance grants, hurting hundreds of nonprofits across the country.

Public and community health providers have also been hit. In Texas and elsewhere, federal cuts to pandemic‐era public health funding have forced local departments to halt work. For instance, after HHS canceled COVID‑relief grants in March 2025, the Lubbock Health Department abruptly stopped a measles outbreak vaccination drive funded by CDC grants. Similarly, seven community health centers in Boston warn that proposed Medicaid cuts under the Trump administration pose a “serious threat” to patient care.

Nonprofit food and nutrition programs are affected, too. Sharing the Harvest reported that a March 2025 USDA funding cut hit their Central Texas Food Bank hard, saying that critical donations, especially meat and other proteins have dwindled due to these cuts “and an inexplicable drop in contributed food…” A Rhode Island nonprofit, Farm Fresh RI, announced $3 million in USDA cuts in February 2025, jeopardizing over 100 local farms.

Multiple data sources and reports from 2023–2025, including national surveys (Urban Institute, MassINC/TBF, United Way), business journals, and expert commentary (NCN, NPQ, news outlets), document this nationwide trend.

Private philanthropy isn't filling gaps fast enough, despite unprecedented wealth sitting in foundations and donor-advised funds.

Philanthropists Katie and Brian Boland of Delta Fund wrote recently about the urgency for a spending revolution. “We love to celebrate the power of financial compounding, marveling at how money grows exponentially over time. Yet, we overlook something equally profound: the compounding effect of human impact,” they preach (and to that I say, preach!). They urge investors to “adopt spend-down strategies, prioritizing immediate, significant investments in people, communities, and systemic change.”

The “compounding effect” of social impact investments return for generations. When we underfund these services, we’re not “saving” money at all. We’re forfeiting huge returns.

The impact of CSF’s defunding will be more students falling straight past the shadows of safety-nets. Compounded, each high school dropout is estimated to cost the economy about $272,000 over a lifetime in lost earnings, lower tax revenue, and higher public assistance spending. One analysis found that each cohort of dropouts nationwide costs over $200 billion in lost economic output and additional social costs. By contrast, the cost to help a student graduate (through mentoring, tutoring, or college prep and scholarship programs) is a tiny fraction of that.

Support College Success Foundation

There is no alarm bell for the quiet end of opportunity, no televised moment when a teenager’s future is made more grim. But the glue holding our communities together is melting, now.

We Can Slow the Melt

• Support Prevention and Core Services: It can be tempting for donors to favor “shiny” new initiatives or highly specific projects. But the greatest community benefit often comes from unrestricted support for core operations of nonprofits doing preventative work. Focus on the outcomes you want to see (kids graduating, people housed, etc.), and fund or volunteer accordingly.

• Engage Your Workplace or Peers: If you’re in a position of influence at your workplace, advocate for more robust giving and volunteering programs. Many companies will match employee donations–if yours doesn’t, ask leadership to consider it. Leaders can set the tone by tying corporate giving to company values and by celebrating employees who give back. Even if you’re not the CEO, you can rally colleagues in a giving circle or a fundraiser for a cause you all care about. Collective action multiplies impact and also sends a message to public officials that the community is invested in these issues.

• Plan for Public Underinvestment: It’s a sad reality, but public budgets are likely to remain uncertain. Rather than throwing up our hands, we should prepare to be part of the solution. This could mean committing to a recurring monthly donation to a nonprofit you love, or making a multi-year pledge to sustain a program even if government funding falters. It could also mean volunteering to support fundraising efforts, or contacting representatives to support funding for education, housing, and healthcare.

When we fund nonprofits as investments in our collective future, we create a different cascade entirely. Collapse is not inevitable. We are not powerless. We can choose differently. Margins are only margins until enough of us step forward and redraw the lines.

Instead of students dropping out, they graduate. Instead of families in crisis, there’s safety in our homes. Instead of burying our head in our hands, we build stronger communities, we support the supporters—this is how we stick together, this is the glue.

This week, a journalist asked me about a rumor that my lawsuit was backed by George Soros as part of a broader, coordinated campaign against Meta. A campaign that includes Sarah Wynn-Williams, Frances Haugen, because the credibility of our claims and their timing with federal inquiry is too well timed.

I laughed.

It's easier to believe we're puppets in some grand conspiracy than to accept that we're individuals who reached similar conclusions from similar experiences. Like avalanches that fall long after the last snowflake has hit, systems of silence hold until they don't.

Conspiracy theories like this also reflect something deep and unspoken about our society: we don’t know how to be afraid. We fear being shamed, wrong, alone, or exiled. The Soros rumor externalizes all that fear, it provides an explanation.

The truth is there’s no George Soros behind me, or anyone bank rolling me. The truth is that I am in fact staring down potential financial ruin.

I confronted a lot of fears, it was like putting my eye up to a dark barrel of total uncertainty over and over with lots of support until I could look long enough to parse the fear.

I was scared about financial consequences, yes, but I was also afraid about the discrediting campaigns I’d been warned about. With my skills and capacity so adrift in recovery, reputation and credibility were my sail.

As such, when I researched other tech whistleblowers while preparing to file, I asked AI if there was any risk of referencing them during press as I planned to (and as I did).

Truth tellers like Sophie Zhang, Ifeoma Ozoma, Aerica Shimizu Banks, Frances Haugen, and Ellen Pao.

AI’s response was something like, “Don’t talk about any of them. Women who stand up to tech companies never walk away with their credibility intact, due to discrediting efforts and career damage from speaking out.”

The recognition hit immediately that I was signing up to be part of the group of women forever discredited.

Moving forward required accepting that fear and staying with it.

“We are all afraid,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said last week at a conference in Anchorage, “…I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.”

As Senator Murkowski modeled, it’s not about waiting for an absence of fear. Courage is about being with ourselves and with fear together

The Paradox of Truth Telling

Generally, people seem to appreciate and applaud those who use their personal capital to speak truth to power, yet many are afraid to do the same. Others wish for a world where people cut the bullshit, then immediately call bullshit on those who do.

We reject what seems impossible, and speaking truth to power can seem really impossible, but it's possible.

We see that as New York Attorney General Letitia James stands against federal overreach, as Governor Janet Mills of Maine promises court action against anti-transgender threats, saying to Trump, “see you in court!”

Professors and journalists document academic censorship, and as thousands of unnamed others place their bodies and careers between their communities and harm. What connects them isn't exceptional bravery. My take? It's their ability to feel afraid and act anyway.

Like Harvard President Alan Garber declaring "No government should dictate what private universities can teach" while facing a $2.2 billion funding freeze, or journalist Karen Attiah launching her own course after Columbia dissolved her department, saying "They can try to cancel us all they want. But this is the community we're building anyway."

The Golden Hour by Karen Attiah

Columbia Canceled My Course on Race and Media. I'm Going to Teach It Anyway.

When I got the opportunity to teach at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in the fall of 2023 for the spring 2024 semester, I was elated. My dream of teaching in a global environment had come true…

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a year ago · 1513 likes · 134 comments · Karen Attiah

These aren't people who've conquered fear, but those who've learned to carry it like an uncomfortable bag; necessary, heavy, but ultimately portable. It’s coming along for the ride.

It’s not about working up the courage to finally take some big future step, it’s the quiet decision to be uncomfortable on purpose, for a purpose.

Some of this I learned 10 years ago, standing on tennis balls in a birth prep class.

The rest of it, I learned when I was in trauma treatment.

DBT-PE (Dialectical Behavior Therapy Prolonged Exposure) is a treatment designed for suicidal people with PTSD. Developed by Dr. Melanie Harned, DBT-PE integrates the life-saving structure and skills of full fidelity DBT with the gold-standard trauma therapy of PE.

As one component of the treatment, the client vividly reimagines traumatic memories in the present tense, usually aloud during sessions, over and over, to:

• Reduce avoidance

• Weaken fear structures

• Allow emotional processing and inhibitory learning

It can be easier to avoid trauma than to confront it, but DBT-PE requires confrontation. To prepare for and recover from exposures, we used something called an Exposure Recording Form. Questions from the "Probability and Cost Estimates” section comes up for me every single time I steady myself for values-aligned behavior despite fear or distress.

For me, it’s useful for both little and big things; from disappointing my kids with tonight’s meal choice to making the decision to stand up to Meta.

And this DBT framework offers questions we can ask ourselves collectively, as we live through one prolonged trauma experience together.

When we resist power structures that threaten to smother us– whether downloading the 5 Calls App and committing 5 minutes a night to calling Congress, like Dr. Colleen Reichmann suggests, or saying “I need a minute” when circumstances urge you to push through, like Paul Shattack included in 80 Tiny Moves for Everyday Resistance–we can ask ourselves:

What is the worst that could happen in this situation?

How likely is it that this will happen?

In many cases, we fear some form of distress, like shame, sadness, humiliation, or fear. In others, we fear a financial catastrophe, or the loss of a relationship. Sometimes the fear is homelessness, illness, death. Sometimes it’s rejection from a group you value. Making a plan for what you will do if that feared thing comes to be is a very effective way to take the air out of the balloon pressing against you.

If it does happen, how will I respond?

How will I stay committed as distress increases?

What’s my backup plan?

In the case of reliving painful memories, these questions helped me build a plan that balanced safety with courage. If distress spiked during or after a memory resurfaced in treatment, I could take a break, grounding myself with sensory input, moving my body, or naming objects in the room. I could turn to distress tolerance skills like paced breathing and putting my face in an ice bath. To stay committed to treatment as the intensity rose, I kept visual reminders of my goals and deescalation plans, and I shared my crisis plan with a few trusted people.

The point isn’t to power through, it's to prepare with enough care and structure that I can keep choosing my values, even when it’s hard.

Systems that oppress us operate in plain sight, protected by our collective agreement to look away, to call them normal, and to accept them as inevitable. This is the harder truth, and facing it requires more courage than it takes to conjure conspiracy theories.

Instead of just imagining the worst, like an ICE officer showing up at a community event, we can decide exactly how we want to respond, and then start clearing the barriers that might get in the way. We figure out what calm, principled behavior would look like for us, what support we’d need, and how we’d stay steady if distressing emotions surged.

This is how I filed a lawsuit, this is why doing so required so much support, which is also why many can’t, which is also why those who can must — but that’s another newsletter.

This approach works in smaller moments too, like speaking up the next time someone says something harmful in a meeting. Rather than freezing then stewing about it afterward, we can prepare for what we’d want to say, practice it, and plan how we’ll ground ourselves if it’s uncomfortable. Plan for how we’ll manage our worst fears.

Making a plan shifts us from helplessness to readiness. It helps us stop circling the obstacles and start making room for our values to land.

Resistance is the process of aligning our behavior to our own values instead of the values of those in power, even if it’s uncomfortable, even at a cost. Even if it’s terrifying.

Which means managing to do hard things isn’t about having a George Soros in your back pocket, it isn’t about possessing innate traits of fearlessness, it isn’t about something only available to the elite, it’s about skills.

This is the opportunity: to be with our fear long enough to recognize the catastrophe of inaction is likely far worse than the catastrophe of action.

This is how we come into alignment with our values, no matter how fast the sky is falling. This is also the way the resistance builds, stretches, towers, and becomes a roof over our heads.

This is about cultivating new skills to face what’s ahead, no matter the uncertainty, no matter the threat.

And that’s also uniquely American.

Just a few weeks ago, I reflected on what Sarah’s memoir “Careless People” and my lawsuit say together about the consequences to the public for Meta's silencing of women who speak up. I examined how SWW’s experience with Meta mirrored my own, from facing harassment to having concerns about safety and ethics dismissed, to ultimately being pushed out when we refused to stay silent.

The parallels continue as I watched SWW testify about the threat to the public of Meta’s prioritization of growth at any cost.

Her testimony details Meta’s:

• Collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) including the co-development of censorship tools

• Suppression of Chinese dissident voices and US data shared with the CCP despite Zuck standing for free speech when it serves him

• Export of AI capabilities to China despite citing competitiveness with China as reason for less conservative AI laws and more sympathetic anti trust investigations

It also reveals that Meta initiated forced arbitration proceedings against SWW without ever properly notifying her or her legal team. They sent documents to a defunct email address she hadn't used in years, deliberately avoiding proper notification until they had secured gag orders. Only then did they send notice to her home address. The hypocrisy is staggering from a company whose CEO cites “free speech” to avoid accountability.

This morning, my 14-page sworn statement detailing Meta’s pattern of choosing growth over safety was sent to the Federal Trade Commission along with Fairplay’s Request for Investigation which alleges that Meta is violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in Horizon Worlds. Fairplay’s report reveals that:

• Meta has knowingly allowed children under 13 to access Horizon Worlds using standard (adult) accounts

• These accounts collect extensive personal data, including biometric and behavioral information, without parental consent

• Children using these accounts are regularly exposed to cyberbullying, predatory behavior, and manipulative marketing

My sworn statement testifies to the fact that leadership absolutely knew about these violations of COPPA and proceeded with growth plans anyway. From my letter to the FTC, with Fairplay’s RFI:

I spent nearly 15 years working at Facebook, which became Meta, rising from an hourly employee to Director of Product Marketing. I once loved Facebook and its promise to make the world more open and connected; I bet my career on it. Today, I am setting my career aside to bet on something more important: the safety and well-being of children online.

My statement outlines Meta’s internal knowledge of underage users in Horizon (including children under 13), repeated warnings ignored, and a systemic pattern of choosing growth over safety.

When I was laid off while on medical leave, I was presented with a severance agreement that required me to hold Meta harmless. I could not, and neither should you.

I urge the FTC to subpoena internal Workplace messages, meeting notes, and launch readiness assessments from 2022 through 2024. These materials will show that Meta leadership was fully aware that children were present and unprotected in Horizon Worlds and proceeded with growth plans anyway. Safety feedback was silenced, documentation discouraged, and product launches prioritized regardless of known violations.

Innovation advances society and leaves our children a better world. I hope my statement supports the Commission in making it clear that harming children for profit in the name of innovation isn’t innovation, it’s exploitation.

In the span of 24 hours, two former Directors with a combined tenure longer than Meta has existed have come forward publicly with information that Meta fought to keep buried. Information about how Meta endangers national security and children's privacy. Information that cost both of us our careers.

The jig is up. Women are exhausted; we are done carrying the shame of men and the institutions and systems protecting their power.

Meta might not have prepared for a world where we wouldn't be intimidated into silence, or have prioritized our personal financial security over the safety of the public. Meta might be learning that when you attract employees with a vision of making the world better, and urge them to stick to their values despite fear, they just might.

We're speaking, on the record, and with receipts.

And now we’ve got allies in the United States Senate.

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Senator Blumenthal wants to know if Mark Zuckerberg has “the guts" to answer to Sarah Wynn-Williams’ testimony, assuring her “it’s not going to be the last time you’re going to speak [about Meta] if we have anything to do with it.”

“Stop trying to silence her. Stop trying to gag her. Stop trying to hide behind your lawyers and millions of dollars in legal fees you’re trying to impose on her. Come to this committee, take the oath, let us question you, and give the American people the truth, adds Senator Hawley, “We will be waiting for you.”

And Senator Markey and Senator Cassidy are collaborating on a joint, bipartisan letter in support of Fairplay’s FTC Request for Investigation.

If Meta stands by its principles, then it’s time to fully comply with the FTC’s antitrust hearing instead of trying to lobby for Trump’s sympathy. It’s time to slam the brakes on Horizon and any initiative that’s harming children and other vulnerable groups. It’s time pull their hypocritical gag orders and let Sarah Wynn-Williams speak freely about her experiences.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for more masculine workplaces as Meta spends millions on intimidation tactics and legal threats to suppress women.

If he believes in his version of the story, he should be man enough to share it — under oath.

Buy Careless People

Workplace discrimination is rarely just one bad actor making a poor choice — it’s part of a system designed to protect power at all costs. At Meta, that cost included the safety of the very users we were trusted to protect.

As weeks and then months stood between me and my time at the company — and its propaganda, its enigmatic directives, the constant redirect to urgent, critical problems to solve, and the gaslighting to justify a growth-at-any-cost mentality — its now clear that this disregard for women transcended teams, locations, and individual leaders at Meta. It was systemic.

Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook’s former Director of Public Policy, detailed her experience within this same system in a memoir, Careless People, released this week with Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.

Despite her career history, impressive credentials, and insider status, there seems more chatter about Meta’s efforts to silence and discredit SWW than about the information she’s offered; the information that’s this worthy of extinguishing.

That’s right, the company that just used Freedom of Speech to defend their cowardice has blocked the promotion of Careless People. An arbitrator ruled in favor of Meta, claiming that promotion would cause the company to suffer “immediate and irreparable loss.”

What about the “immediate and irreparable loss” of Meta putting profit before people, or the stories coming to light like mine and SWW’s, detailing how Meta punishes women who call attention to it?

Despite the fact that Sarah Wynn-Williams corroborated concerns that industry watchers have long speculated about, journalists have reported on, and even Meta itself has previously acknowledged, the willingness to question SWW’s competence rather than engage earnestly with the substance of her revelations raises some uncomfortable questions:

Why must we consistently diminish women's authority?

Who are we harming when we do?

First Our Bodies, then Our Ideas

When my boss brazenly put his hand down my pants as I repeated “no,” when Joel Kaplan (Meta exec, Sheryl’s ex-boyfriend, but most widely known for being the guy in the background of his college buddy’s sexual assault hearing) felt safe enough to grind against an unwilling Sarah Wynn-Williams’ after calling her “sultry” in front of a group at a work event, they were disregarding our bodies, clearly. But that’s just the start—

Even if we could end every instance of workplace harassment, systemic bias would still end women’s careers. ​

Mary Ann Sieghart's book, The Authority Gap, delves into the pervasive issue of women’s thoughts and expertise being systematically underestimated and undervalued across various sectors, irrespective of their qualifications or positions.

In Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams describes a situation where the company issued a public denial of their ability to target teens based on emotional state, in the midst of a PR crisis when it was revealed that beauty advertisers could target teens who felt “worthless.”

When an important client called SWW expressing confusion that Facebook would deny targeting tools that are powerful and granular, she turned to VP of Communications and Public Policy, Elliot Schrage, “Relaying the call I had from the ad executive and my own concerns that we’re lying to the public” In Careless People, Elliot’s amused, saying, “if you and he both hate this—for opposite reasons—we must’ve gotten this exactly right.”

Would Sarah Wynn Williams’ concerns about child safety have been taken seriously if instead of “Sarah” she were “Sam”?

Similarly, my warnings about children's exposure to hate speech, sexual harassment, and bullying on Horizon were dismissed, putting vulnerable young users at risk. Leadership knew that in one test, users with black avatars were subjected to racial slurs within 34 seconds of entering Horizon, yet growth was prioritized so desperately that they diverted employees from FTC Consent Order compliance despite the team sounding alarms.

I was denied opportunities and promotions when‬ documenting my achievements would expose the failures of male VPs, after I had been relied on to lead the team‬ through crises they had caused. This didn't happen once; it repeated across different teams, locations, and reporting structures. This repeated until I broke.

Revolving Doors of Women

In the weeks leading up to my medical leave, I reached out to Boz in one of my escalation efforts to alert senior leadership about the toxic dynamics in my organization, after being disregarded and gaslit to the point of a psychological crisis.

While known for being sometimes brusque, I’d also found Meta’s Reality Labs Head and Chief Technology Officer, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth to be authentic and intelligent — I respected him. In 2012, when I was in a housing pinch during a black mold disaster (never rent an apartment with carpet in the bathrooms!), Boz offered me his extra house in San Mateo that was sitting empty pre-construction. While I ended up with a different solution, the gesture touched me. He’d made mistakes as a leader, but he fixed them — or at least I believed so much.

In January 2023, I write to Boz in a Workplace message:

“I’m concerned that I continue to see senior women leaving in droves (4D+ women in RL on medical leave or left team in last ~month)… I have never had women on my team observe the boy’s club dynamic, be crushed by it, and ask if they should factor this dynamic into their career track here… From a business standpoint, I lose confidence that we will be able to be successful with this level of organizational toxicity…”

I close with a parable, something I’d heard from the recently appointed Horizon Product Leader, Gabe Aul: “Culture is what we encourage, punish, or ignore. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ignore part. Hope you are too. xx”

Boz responded later that day.

“My staff is one third women as it has been for some time and while we have lost women from that group we have added them in equal measure,” he says before adding: “However, it is clear in your specific circles there is a major shift afoot…”

Meritocracies, like Rainbows and Unicorns

Boz's response exemplifies a dangerous cliche in tech: when confronted with systemic gender bias, leadership points to representation statistics rather than addressing the toxic culture. This defensive redirection is part of a larger mythology in tech: the belief in meritocracy.

Representation is never enough on it’s own because meritocracies are myths. Many choose to ignore the data and instead believe we can simply wish equity into existence.

Sam Lessin and Joe Lonsdale — who are notably both White VCs who live in California and went to Harvard and Stanford — recently launched Merit First, featuring a manifesto that begins with “American companies are in a crisis,” and ends with “… we choose meritocracy as our path forward.”

I’ll summarize: they’ve built a more efficient pipeline to inequitable workplaces.

Skills-based hiring creates a pathway, but what happens after they get a job?

What about the systemic biases that show up in promotions, leadership opportunities, workplace culture, and retention? The long mythologized garage-to-greatness story is deeply embedded in Silicon Valley's identity: a competitive marketplace where only the best code wins. But that’s not what happens.

With women representing only 19% of developers, research from GitHub's 12-million-person community reveals that code written by women is accepted at higher rates than code written by men – but only when gender remains hidden. When female developers' gender becomes visible, acceptance rates drop below those of their male counterparts.

Without counter-bias measures, even the most meritorious hiring practices feed people into the same broken system where bias will dictate whose careers and ideas break through. Unmanaged bias has already proven to undermine product market fit and negatively impact tech products:

• Google’s PR department spent years apologizing for a photo-labeling system that misidentified Black people as gorillas

• Nikon’s “smart” digital cameras faced backlash for flashing “did someone blink?” messages when photographing Asian people

• Object-detection software failed to recognize dark-skinned individuals in virtual reality games, and more dangerously, in the models designed to prevent self-driving cars from hitting pedestrians

The Urgency to Debias AI

The future is being built by an industry where under 20% of AI VC funds went to companies with a female founder, only 10% of AI researchers at Google are women. When they created an AI advisory council, Meta appointed exclusively white men with no ethicists or researchers.

AI systems, by nature, reflect the data and perspectives they are trained on, which means homogeneity in development leads to blind spots that can reinforce biases, exclude vulnerable populations, and amplify systemic inequities.

Technology offers to improve lives at unprecedented pace, and in the same sense it can cause destruction at scale.

Sarah Wynn-Williams shares in her epilogue that she’s been drawn to AI Policy lately, “which is wild with geopolitical and policy issues.”

And she helps us understand “some of the most fundamental existential questions: Should a human be involved before nuclear weapons are triggered? Should lethal or nonlethal AI weapons operate under human rights oversight or control? or What rules need to be in place to avoid inadvertent escalation with the use of AI enabled weapons systems in Warfare? All questions humans have never had to deal with before.”

Durable solutions acknowledge biases exist and prevent them from determining outcomes

Imagine this enterprise cybersecurity proposal: “Despite evidence that we must safeguard the company against digital threats, our plan is to just train our employees to do the right thing once or twice a year.”

Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing when we pour $8 billion a year into DEI trainings and calling it enough. It’s not enough.

A mature risk management culture ensures all employees feel safe and are safe to voice concerns.

Technology and AI leaders taking this risk and responsibility seriously will:

• Prioritize DEI as a core business function, connecting outcomes to executive compensation

• Obtain third-party certifications such as the GEN Certification, which evaluates companies across 200+ indicators to prove they’ve gone beyond empty promises to meaningful, measurable action

• Track and report on hiring, firing, pay, and promotions for protected identities and at the intersections of these identities

• Support legislation calling for whistleblower protections like the “Silenced No More Act” (SB 331) — co-sponsored by Ifeoma Ozoma, who experienced discrimination in tech first-hand. SB3 331 prohibits employers from using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence employees who speak out about harassment or discrimination

Culture is What You Reward, Punish, and Ignore

When it didn’t seem I was getting through to Boz in that January 2023 Workplace chat, I clarified:

“I am not concerned so much about representation vs. what the experience is like for the women representing,” I type. “I’m not trying to stage a take down of an individual or individuals. It’s more that it seems even those behaving badly aren’t grasping that with so many behaving badly at once, and often in coordination, it turns into one of those ‘work twice as hard to go half as far’ things. I’ve been through a lot in 14 years… and here I am stronger and more confident and capable than I have ever been, getting eating up and spit out. It just worries me deeply.”

After encouraging him to reach out to the other women who had recently departed or were on leave and asking for their candor, I said:

“You know how much I love and appreciate how human and kind and real you are. You are one of my Facebooks in a sea of Metas. And Facebooks doesn’t necessarily mean tenured. They just mean, connected to the core of who we are as a company, and here to build the best products, period.”

He gave my message a “care” emoji and said, “Well I'm pretty sure I know one of the four women you are referring to, but I don't know if I have the full list. This is something I will follow up on, of course.”

He didn’t, he did nothing as far as I can tell.

Sarah Wynn-Williams describes a similar effort on her part, just before she was discarded, too. “All through the conversation, [Elliot’s] careful to say very little. I tell him it’s not just me. It’s a much broader problem at the company. ‘I need to understand what has gone on here,’ Elliot responds, which is surprising because he knows exactly what’s been going on. Elliot turns his back to dismiss me and the conversation is done.”

When does ignorance become negligence?

Ignorance becomes negligence somewhere far before joining the C-suite of a powerful and influential global company worth $1.5 trillion and reaching over 3 billion people every month.

SWW’s experience of watching from inside as immense power and wealth led to ethical compromises and a departure from the company's original ideals is consistent with mine.

Amnesty International confirms Meta’s culpability in Myanmar, Senate hearings display the destruction of teen suicides, and SWW’s recent SEC filing calls attention to Meta’s willingness to compromise safety for power in China.

Billionaires hand-waving about innovation and efficiency and meritocracies is performative idealism that’s hurting the products we build and the people whose lives we claim to improve.

We need countermeasures, we need truth tellers, and we need safeguards — and not those built, bought, or brokered by billionaires.

“Instead of fixing these things, this ongoing suffering they have caused, they seem indifferent,” Sarah Wynn-Williams reflects my experience, too, “They’re happy to get richer and they just don’t care.”

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Listen to Careless People on Libro.fm

Last week I sat across from journalists as I detailed my lawsuit against one of the most powerful corporations in the world. This week I am sitting cross-legged on concrete that needs repair, surrounded by boxes of Thin Mints and Tagalongs, Samoas and the suffocating doom in the air. It’s not covered in a chocolatey, minty coating.

I am afraid, but these boxes form a metropolis around me. Thin Mints stand as the financial district—two sleeved-skyscrapers, self-assured and popular, the first to sell out. Samoas form the arts district—complex rings with hidden depth, coconut flecks like tiny galleries. Trefoils are the countryside, plain and monochromatic, yet comforting and reliable.

I am the mayor of this cardboard city, I am also the janitor, and I am responsible for equipping twelve third grade girls to learn skills like goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics, and speaking with confidence.

And this is resistance.

Resistance takes many forms. Sometimes it's filing a lawsuit. Sometimes it's counting cookie boxes for a program that teaches girls to be leaders. We have been told that resistance must be grand, public, and perpetual. That if we're not constantly fighting visibly, we've surrendered. This is a lie designed to exhaust us into submission.

Here is what I know: Systems of oppression count on our burnout. They are built to outlast our collective rage. They feed on our shame when we need to rest. They want us to feel incapable of taking action. As I said to Lyz, individual action and collective rage is what will save us.

So when I reconcile this cookie spreadsheet, when I cry because I can’t do it as quickly or easily as I used to, I have to trust myself that I’m doing my best, and that my capacity is constrained. I constantly remind myself of this, and so do the people that love me. I am not retreating from the fight – I’m fighting.

The unread emails pile up. The text messages wait for responses. I open my phone and learn something like Trump orders NASA to purge all mentions of women in leadership. I put my phone away, I am overwhelmed.

I’m overwhelmed, but I am not helpless. Resistance can look like channeling your anger into counting Girl Scout Cookies in your garage, or chairing a candidate’s run for school board. Resistance can look like preserving cultural traditions, or planting a community garden. Resistance can look like none of this. Resistance can look like writing a poem no one will ever read. Resistance can look like rest.

Capitalism wants us to believe our worth lies in constant productivity. Patriarchy tells us our power comes from never showing weakness. Both are lies designed to keep us small, exhausted, and alone.

The truth is messier. The truth is that sometimes filing a lawsuit against corporate giants and counting cookies in your garage can be equally revolutionary acts. The most radical thing we can do is reject the false choice between saving the world and saving ourselves. We need both. We are both.

This is the brutal and beautiful both/and of being human in these times: We can tirelessly fight systems of oppression and need to deeply rest. We can speak truth to power and struggle with executive function. We can serve complaints and cookies.

The resistance doesn't need more martyrs. It needs more humans who know how to sustain themselves for the long fight ahead. Who understand that sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply to continue existing authentically in a world that would prefer you didn't.

Yesterday, I listened to Monica Lewinsky’s new podcast, Reclaiming, with Olivia Munn. Olivia closed by saying, “I think about being 80, and if I was granted a time machine to go 40 years back… that’s what I think about every time…” and she goes on to describe appreciating her childrens’ faces more, and even the messes.

It got me thinking about the cost of our hyper vigilance, the cost of our exhaustion usurping life, and the cost of women’s repressed anger. It keeps us stuck, at arms reach. In our homes and outside, too.

Forty years from today, it’ll still be cookie season. If I’m lucky, I’m sharing a sleeve of Thin Mints with my grandchildren, telling them about how I survived one of the darkest periods in modern history. Telling them about suing Meta, yes. Telling them about counting cookies, maybe even about writing an essay about it.

And I’ll also be telling them about rest.

But there are no corporatism for the environments that wedge ice picks between people and their power. We’re taught to “climb mountains,” but told nothing of the altitude sickness. Let me say what hasn’t been: the air is thin.

We’re not warned that changes will be gradual until we can no longer breathe deeply. We’re rewarded for functioning on less oxygen, so we mistake light-headedness for enlightenment.

Posters plastered to office walls don’t prepare you for the sensation of sliding downhill, away from yourself, after your career is sent careening — all because you tied it to a rope team of the rest of you.

It’s easier to say someone “stepped back” or “took a break” as if it’s a pause on a pleasant hike, and not the side effects of slowly suffocating, or the consequences of reaching for the offered oxygen.

Here’s what I wish I’d been told: there are other mountains.

Within all of them, valleys to explore, still obstacles to overcome, but so many paths wind through gentler terrain, where the air is rich and your lungs fill fully whether you focus on it or not.

I wish I’d been told that the best climbers aren’t the ones that go farthest, fastest, but those who know when to make camp and when to turn back. It’s those who understand that while the avalanche may have cost them the summit, it wasn’t caused by their climbing skills.

To my thousands of former colleagues who were laid off today: falling off a mountain is disorienting, so don’t be ashamed if it takes some time to get used to solid ground. If you can’t navigate — find a flashlight: call someone you trust for help, like a friend, a therapist, or 988.

The skills that got you this far aren’t tied to any single mountain, and certainly not one with shifting snowpack. You know how to climb.

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Last week I filed a lawsuit against Meta. So many of you reached out to offer support and encouragement — I am gratefully working my way through my inboxes. In the meantime, here’s a roundup of press highlights:

• Reported by Louisa Clarence-Smith in The Times: Why I fear Mark Zuckerberg — after 15 years of working for him

The latest iteration of Zuckerberg as an apparent ally of President Trump, she says, reveals that he was willing to say and do “whatever was going to be most effective in the current climate that he was in to accumulate power”. She now worries the boss she formerly admired will cause harm. “I’ve seen Mark’s focus, his aggression, and I’ve seen that be a force for good and it inspired me to action.

“And I have a lot of fears of what an unchecked Mark Zuckerberg looks like as a force for harm. And I hope that enough people start taking action in whatever way is appropriate and safe for them, and telling the truth so that we can think really critically about the moves that Big Tech and our government are making, separately and together.”

• Reported by Beatrice Nolan in Fortune: Former Meta director is suing the company over a ‘toxic pattern’ of silencing women: ‘I can show what happens when we want more masculine workplaces’

Last month, Zuckerberg also appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss gender roles in corporate America.

The Meta CEO said that corporate America has gone “too far” in embracing “feminine energy,” had become “culturally neutered,” and that companies have lacked “masculine energy.”

He said: “It’s one thing to say we want to be welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and it’s another to basically say masculinity is bad. We swung culturally to that part of the spectrum—masculinity is toxic, we have to get rid of it.”

Stonelake said while Zuckerberg may have intended to encourage people to be more decisive or aggressive—qualities she respects in a professional environment—the comments were personally “heartbreaking.”

“If you have a rampant problem of women not feeling safe doing their jobs at all and your solution is to call for more masculinity, it’s irresponsible, it’s reckless, and it will hurt people,” she said.

Reflecting on the recent content moderation overhaul, Stonelake said she was “embarrassed about how naive I was and how much I trusted Mark.”

“Meta was aware of the harm that hate speech, especially unmanaged hate speech, has on the platform,” Stonelake said.

“I watched someone I trusted use the company history, cite first principles, and go back to our roots to defend a regression of responsibility and an abdication of accountability that will be violent,” she said. “Hate speech incites violence.”

• Reported by Amanda Silberling and Dominic-Madori Davis in Tech Crunch: Early Meta employee sues for sexual harassment and discrimination

“I thought that as I got more and more senior … I would only be able to protect more people to change the culture,” said Stonelake. “My experience was that the more senior I got, so did my peers, and I noticed that the more senior men were, the less tolerance they had to be challenged.”

• Reported by Sydney Bradley and Pranav Dixit in Business Insider: Ex-Meta employee sues the tech giant, alleging a 'toxic pattern of silencing women'

"I used to think the gap between Meta's public statements and the internal experience of working there was a bug or a misunderstanding to resolve," Stonelake told BI. "Now I believe it to be a feature, a core strategy of how Meta is able to keep really good people focused on really harmful work."

• Reported by David Chiu in People: Ex-Meta Worker Alleges 'Toxic Pattern of Silencing Women' and Files Suit After Mark Zuckerberg's 'Masculine Energy' Comments

“When I escalated these problems, I became the problem – a pattern that widens the wealth gap and silences women everywhere,” she continued. “The truth doesn’t matter to [Meta founder] Mark Zuckerberg, but it matters to me.”