I am as shocked as I am confused that Mark Zuckerberg is going all-out to block a memoir by Facebooks former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams. I thought information wanted to be free? I definitely heard that speech should be. We know Metas revolting oligarch doesnt write his self-serving public pronouncements, but he should at least make time in his busy Magafication schedule to read them.Anyway, even if you think the stories in Careless People are untrue and I dont, for a single nanosecond I thought the Meta boss said disinformation wasnt a thing any more? He recently binned off all his factcheckers to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship. Yet here we are reading stories of how Meta this week launched an emergency action in the US to ban Wynn-Williams from promoting or further distributing copies of her book. It argued successfully, for now that it would face immediate loss in the absence of immediate relief.Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg in Idaho, 8 July 2021. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesHonestly, Mark: TOUGHEN UP! It was only about 10 minutes ago that you were telling Joe Rogan that corporations needed more masculine energy. If somethings wrong or dangerous or really seriously harmful, just let everyone keep seeing it because, freedom but pop a community note on it. As for how you put a community note on a book, my advice to you would be to go and stand outside Pan Macmillan, which bravely published Wynn-Williams, with a little sign saying context. Listen, if its a good enough bulwark against the risk of genocide in some boring old developing-world backwater, then it should be good enough for you.The grounds for Meta calling in emergency lawyers to block Wynn-Williamss book seem to be that she has gone against the terms of her severance. Luckily, none of us has a non-disparagement clause against Zuckerberg, who on this evidence and so much more should be disparaged every minute of every day in the countries where he operates, and even in the ones he doesnt. Theres a lovely bit in the book where his company is said to be dangling the possibility that itll give the Chinese regime special access to users data. Photograph: PRIn conversation, I overuse the phrase the worst people in the world, but the Facebook/Meta top brass really are up there. Wynn-Williamss book is that simultaneously satisfying yet horrifying thing an insider account that shows you that absolutely every single one of the awful things you already suspected apparently really did go on behind closed doors. As did a few you didnt suspect. I knew Sheryl Sandbergs brand of lean in feminism was bullshit but I didnt think it involved female employees being encouraged to lean into her lap/her bed on private planes.Shortly after turning this offer down, Wynn-Williams nearly dies in childbirth. Once shes back at work, her male boss tells her she was insufficiently responsive during the period. In my defence, says Wynn-Williams, I was in a coma for some of it. For light relief, we meet a shadowy Zuckerberg aide who supposedly games his bosss own algorithm so his posts have mega-engagement. Marks senior staff all let him win at Catan.And thats just the office politics stuff. The hardcore business what we might call the politics politics stuff is so much worse. Meta is currently insisting Wynn-Williams was ultimately fired for poor performance and toxic behaviour. But its amazing to think anyone at Meta could get fired for toxic behaviour. Im sure whatever theyve done didnt actively stoke a genocide, like the Rohingya claim that the firms negligence did in Myanmar. Im sure it couldnt be as bad as betraying vulnerable citizens in exchange for market penetration.Quite early on in Wynn-Williamss 2011-2017 stint at Facebook, a US Treasury official tells the Facebook execs theyre two years away from being hated as much as the investment banks. Well, that turned out to be adorably optimistic. I think we all love the cuddly old banks compared to companies such as Marks or Elons. But, of course, the tech firms are way, way too powerful to care.Meanwhile, the worlds children have simply been allowed to become hideously and destructively addicted to their products by politicians who either implicitly or,all western countries and plenty beyond have failed to protect children from the known iniquities and poison of social media. Australia alone has just banned it for under-16s. Ive no idea where Zuckerbergs children (the first born of whom he apparently asked Xi Jinping to name) go to school. But like metaphorical crack dealers many Silicon Valley bosses sent their kids to a specific local Steiner school where its all crocheted textbooks and chalkboards and no one is stupid enough to let the little scions near the narcotising horrors of the product.So on Meta sails. There are words and phrases for these supranational organised enterprises that harm societies and seemingly do whatever they like, and none of them is the nerdily bland tech firm. What was it that the Indians used to call the period of chaos and social instability wreaked by the East India Company, the rampaging entity/honourable company that I increasingly feel Meta is most redolent of? Ah yes: the anarchy. We live in a modern form of it now, thanks to Zuckerberg and others, and its way past time we did more than simply scroll defeatedly on.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistCareless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan Macmillan, 22). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.