“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they
smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their
vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other
people clean up the mess they had made.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“It still feels
exciting and important to spread this tool around the world and improve
people’s lives.”
Sarah Wynn-Williams
“move fast and break things”
Mark Zuckerberg
I must insist upon the masses, and their integrity as
a whole. I have great faith in the masses. The noble character of mechanics and
farmers—their curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness—the whole composite
make. Significant alike in their apathy, and the promptness of their love—I
know they are sublime. Before we despair we have to count them in—after we
count them in we won’t despair.
Walt Whitman- Democracy
“ The character of the new Trump government marks a
violent realignment of the state to correspond with the nature of capitalist
society itself. The world’s richest individuals and corporations control
resources on an unfathomable scale, with a growing number of centibillionaires
whose personal wealth exceeds the GDP of the world’s 120 poorest nations. In
the United States, the three wealthiest people now collectively control more
wealth than the bottom 50 per cent of the population combined”
WSWS Editorial Board Statement
To a certain extent, you can see why Meta, formerly
Facebook would want to ban this book and gag the author from publicizing it.
Both actions by Meta failed and backfired spectacularly as the book has sold in
the millions.
Careless People is an interesting if limited expose of
Facebook. An organization that has been called pretty accurately a ‘diabolical
cult’. Wynn-William spent seven years at Facebook and her 400-page book is a
pretty damning indictment. The first thing that strikes one about the leading
players on Facebook is the stunning level of hypocrisy and duplicity. Williams cites
Facebook’s number two Sheryl Kara Sandberg’s 2013 book Lean In: Women, Work,
and the Will to Lead.
Sandberg casts herself as a feminist icon however the
reality is a little different. Her advice to pregnant working women – “Don’t
leave before you leave” – meaning that the mother should work herself to death
just before the baby is born. As one reviewer said, “It doesn’t occur to her
that Lean In feminism might serve as a fig leaf covering
self-exploitation and soul-depleting workaholism.” Wynn-Williams, among others,
was also bizarrely invited by Sandberg to sleep in her bed presumably to have
sexual relations.
Having said that before Sandberg treated her like a
piece of crap Wynn-Williams exhibited a large degree of political naivety and
outright fawning over Sandberg and Facebook in general writing “Until this
moment, it had never occurred to me to see Sheryl as a celebrity or be
awestruck by her... But now I can see how she’s sprinkling some of her
stardust, whatever that magical quality is that she has that makes you forget
to focus on the substance of the meeting at hand and instead wonder what it is
she’s doing differently that makes her better than you.”[1]
The book’s title comes from F Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up
things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness.”
As a useful analogy for the “Careless People” at Facebook, it only takes one so
far. While Zuckerberg and his cohorts were indeed amoral, stupid, reckless and devoid
of any principles they were representatives of an oligarch that has now
captured the White House in America and is launching attack after attack on the
working class. Significant protests against Trump’s attacks on immigrants and
escalating deportation operations have erupted across the United States.
Student leader Momodou Taal has been targeted by the Trump administration who
have tried to have him deported for speaking out against the Israeli genocide
in Gaza.
As Robert Reich correctly states “Mark Zuckerberg, the
second-richest person, has followed suit, allowing Facebook to emit lies, hate
and bigotry in support of Trump’s lies, hate and bigotry. All three of these
men were in the first row at Trump’s inauguration. They, and other
billionaires, have now exposed themselves for what they are. They are the
oligarchy. They continue to siphon off the wealth of the nation. They are
supporting a tyrant who is promising them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks
that will make them even richer. They are destroying democracy so they won’t
have to worry about “parasites” (as Musk calls people who depend on government
assistance) demanding anything more from them. When billionaires take control
of our communication channels, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for
their billionaire babble”.[2]
Or to put it more precisely as a statement by WSWS
Editorial Board does “ The character of the new Trump government marks a
violent realignment of the state to correspond with the nature of capitalist
society itself. The world’s richest individuals and corporations control
resources on an unfathomable scale, with a growing number of centibillionaires
whose personal wealth exceeds the GDP of the world’s 120 poorest nations. In
the United States, the three wealthiest people now collectively control more
wealth than the bottom 50 per cent of the population combined”.[3]
This type of wealth is becoming increasingly
incompatible with Walt Whitman’s beloved idea of Democracy. But this political
and economic situation largely passes Wynn-Williams by. She is completely indifferent
to the assault by Oligarch Zuckerberg's Facebook on the Socialist movement. The
orthodox Marxists of the WSWS.Org have faced the brunt of Facebook’s wrath and censorship.
What is not mentioned in Wynn Williams's book is that Facebook was and still is
engaged in an escalating campaign of internet censorship targeting the
socialist left. Entire Facebook pages were taken down, and individual accounts were
permanently disabled, without any explanation given or recourse allowed.
Facebook began its systematic censorship of the
WSWS.Org after the January 6th 2021 attempted coup by Trump and his supporters.
As Kevin Reed points out “It could not be clearer that the entire US ruling
establishment is attempting to utilize the events of January 6 as justification
for shutting down progressive, left-wing, anti-capitalist and socialist
political organizations and publishers on social media platforms such as
Facebook. The subsequent shutdown of groups, pages and accounts—including the
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at the University
of Michigan and leading members of the Socialist Equality Party in the US—by
Facebook that began on January 22 is part of this strategy”[4]
Wynn Williams's book is a well-written but somewhat
limited insight into the lives of Facebook Oligarchs. For a far more precise
and revolutionary insight into the rise of the oligarchs one should purchase a
copy of the newly released book from Mehring books.com entitled The Election of
Donald Trump: The insurrection of the oligarchy.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-William
