‘Welcome to Thefacebook!’, read the banner headline in 2004 welcoming college students to an online directory aimed at ‘connecting people through social networks’.

Back then, social media was just that, social. Before AI and algorithms and all the technology yet to come, Facebook was pitched as a digital gathering place designed to help people get to know one another despite never meeting in person.

Early use cases included connecting with people at school and finding out who you shared classes with. When this proto-Facebook was still exclusive to the hallowed halls of Harvard, the act of connecting people was central to the platform’s purpose and runaway growth. That is, until years later, when people started ranking second to product, and eventually became the product, through deep personalisation and hyper-targeted advertising that today determines what appears on our screens every time our thumbs are drawn to the Facebook app. Ditto for Instagram.

Meta, the parent company behind both, is nowadays multinational and monolithic, reaching close to 4 billion active users each month across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. That’s practically half of the planet.

Big Tech and its outsized influence on the world around us has been long documented, yet a new memoir from Facebook’s former director of public policy provides an insider account of corporate power gone unchecked.

Dubbed ‘the book Meta doesn’t want you to read’, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams serves up unvarnished answers to the persistent question: how did a freely available social media platform morph into a juggernaut big enough to influence world events and political elections in real-time?

Amid the allegations that make up this timely exposé, Wynn-Williams charts Facebook’s relentless pursuit of power at any cost. Of a Silicon Valley up-start operating under the motto of moving fast and breaking things, without due consideration for how the business was impacting people’s lives on the other side of the screen.

Wynn-Williams is frank in her retelling, including how she first set foot in Facebook HQ as a true believer, energised by a sense of purpose that the fated phenomenon had the potential to ‘change the world for the better’. That was back in 2011, when the platform was still largely cushioned in good-will as it swept the globe. Lending voices to democratic movements and generally being hailed as a vital toolkit during real-world disasters, such as enabling users to mark themselves ‘safe’ during an earthquake.

How that enthusiasm eventually eroded, however, is the dynamite at the core of the book. Which zeroes in on the careless people who wielded ever more influence as they controlled levers of power on a global scale.

Recounting Facebook’s influence on the Myanmar genocide in 2016, Wynn-Williams writes that the platform all but turned a blind eye to fermenting hate speech, stating that Myanmar “would have been a better place had Facebook not arrived.” A declaration later confirmed by UN human rights experts who concluded the use of Facebook played a “determining role” in stirring up hatred against the Rohingya minority.

The company’s dealings with China were also subject to similar scrutiny, raising very valid concerns around handling of user data and the lack of transparency apparent in the algorithms that not only shape what we see on the screen, but invariably have a broader impact on cultural norms.

Even beyond Wynn-Williams’ best-seller, real regulatory consequences are becoming increasingly common. Only last week, Meta settled an $8 billion lawsuit with shareholders who sued the company for failing to protect user data, with the lawsuit alleging Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg knowingly positioned Facebook as an illegal harvester of data, the currency of our modern age.

Despite being expected to take the stand, neither Zuckerberg nor Sandberg appeared for the trial, leading critics to label the settlement as a ‘missed opportunity for public accountability’. Like the Careless People of the Roaring ‘20s with whom Wynn-Williams draws the parallel, the duo largely responsible for Facebook’s exorbitant power retreated into their money or vast carelessness – or both – leaving others to clean up the mess they made.

We may never know for sure what goes on behind closed doors, behind the servers and the screens that serve as our daily interface with this digital ecosystem. An ecosystem in which brand reputations can be won or lost in a matter of minutes.

However, when the brand and the platform are one and the same, it necessitates a new level of accountability. To fully recognise the responsibility inherent in carrying content to half of humanity.

Careless People does well to highlight the indefensible, but it also remembers the founding principles of these platforms as a force for good, bidding to make the world more open and connected.

Social media’s honeymoon phase is behind us. As we scroll forward into this ‘techlash’ era, greater focus and careful introspection is needed to ensure the platforms we carry around in our pocket are continuously held to account. So that progress may be defined by transparent innovation, rather than solely market reach.