Sarah Wynn-Williams CARELESS PEOPLE with Stephanie Merritt

Careless People
Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People was one of the non-fiction sensations of 2025. A hugely praised - and award winning - bestselling account of Sarah's time as Global Policy Director at Facebook, Meta secured a ruling against Sarah on publication day preventing her from promoting the book, or indeed saying anything critical or ‘otherwise detrimental’ about Meta.

Due to these ongoing legal restrictions, Sarah is barred from speaking about her book or from saying anything negative about her former employer. Instead, Sarah will join us to share her thoughts and invite engagement on a wider, more urgent conversation: how did we lose control of the Internet, and is it possible to reclaim it? From the decay of the online world to the new geopolitics of AI, as power shifts from governments to platforms, this is a rare chance to hear from a woman who has stood at the nexus of global diplomacy and big-tech power—and lived to share the tale at great personal cost.

Sarah Wynn-Williams

Sarah Wynn-Williams is a former New Zealand diplomat and international lawyer. She joined Facebook after pitching a job and worked there for many years, ultimately becoming director of global public policy. After leaving the company, she has continued to work on tech policy, including artificial intelligence.

Stephanie Merritt

Stephanie Merritt began reviewing books for national newspapers while she was reading English literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge and after graduating went on to become Deputy Literary Editor of the Observer in 1998. Her first novel, Gaveston, was published by Faber & Faber in 2002 and won a Betty Trask award.

She continues to work as a feature writer and critic for the Guardian and the Observer and from 2007-2008 she curated and produced the Talks and Debates programme on issues in contemporary arts and politics at London’s Soho Theatre. She has appeared as a panellist on various Radio 4 shows and on BBC2’s Newsnight Review, and is a regular chair and presenter at the Hay Festival and the National Theatre.