Pluralistic: Zuckerberg’s increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (27 Jun 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers: Under no circumstances should you rush out and read the book that prompted Mark Zuckerberg to demand $111m and eternal auctorial silence.

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Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (permalink)

More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator."

Lukashenka's secret police – still called the KGB – routinely terrorize and kidnap pro-democracy activists, and all forms of protest are banned. It was against the backdrop of this unrelenting oppression that the activists launched a series of whimsical "flash mobs" that challenged the Lukashenka regime's willingness to crack down on even the most innocuous behavior.

One of these flash mobs was an ice cream social: activists converged on a public square to eat ice cream cones. Lukashenka's thugs beat them and dragged them away:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070609164305/http://pics.livejournal.com/litota_/gallery/0000bcch

The protestors thought that by daring Lukashenka to arrest people for eating ice cream, they could create a win-win situation: either Lukashenka would be revealed as the kind of asshole who thinks it should be illegal to eat ice cream, or he'd be revealed as the kind of weakling who couldn't keep a lid on dissent.

Lukashenka took the bait. And took it. And took it. In the years that followed, protesters would be arrested for smiling, clapping, and just standing silently:

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/07/belarus-protesters-rally-on-the-web/

The world learned that Lukashenka was a buffoon, and Belarusians affirmed their view that this buffoon would not hesitate to mete out the most vicious punishments for the most innocuous actions:

https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/25739638.2021.1928880

Speaking of thin-skinned, paranoid, wildly corrupt buffoons who will stop at nothing to silence their enemies, how about that Mark Zuckerberg, huh? Sure, all the headlines these days are about Zuck's intention to transform Facebook into a sports betting site:

https://www.businessinsider.com/metas-zuckerberg-enters-the-prediction-market-arena-polymarket-2026-6

But in the UK, Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook's international relations team:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf

Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it's also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook's executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg.

These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people's organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.

It's a terrible...