Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams and the late Virginia Giuffre have jointly won the Freedom to Publish prize at this year’s British book awards, marking the first time the award has been shared.

Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook executive, was recognised for Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism, her bestselling memoir about her years inside Meta, formerly Facebook. The book makes allegations about the company’s internal culture and practices, including its approach to political influence, China and the wellbeing of teenagers. Meta has disputed the claims.

Giuffre received the award posthumously for Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which recounts the abuse she said she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and others.

The award, presented by Yulia Navalnaya and supported by the free expression organisation Index on Censorship, was established in 2022 to highlight threats to writers, publishers and booksellers, and to recognise those who resist attempts at censorship.

Speaking at the ceremony, Wynn-Williams used a rare public appearance to warn of the growing influence of wealthy elites over public discourse and institutions.

“We are all living in a world that now, more than ever, is dominated by networks of powerful elites, whose wealth too often puts them above the law,” she said. “As they rewrite the rules, they grow arrogant with entitlement and impunity.”

Wynn-Williams has herself faced legal restrictions since the publication of Careless People. Meta secured a legal order on the eve of publication preventing her from publicly discussing aspects of the book, and she faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order.

Referring to Giuffre’s memoir, Wynn-Williams said: “Virginia understood who silence protected and realised that only truth can protect everyone else.” She added that Giuffre had faced “coordinated suppression efforts, intimidation and litigation” after speaking publicly about Epstein and Maxwell.

“But here’s a strange thing,” Wynn-Williams said. “When you try that hard to silence a woman who is telling the truth, you announce to the whole world that the truth must be very dangerous indeed.”

“Virginia spent years exhausted by a battle she should never have had to fight,” she continued. “She did not get the ending her story deserves.”

Mike Harpley, publisher at Pan Macmillan, praised Wynn-Williams’s “astonishing bravery” in writing Careless People.

“She is now facing a considerable personal, legal and financial toll for bringing to light issues of crucial public interest, both here in the UK and internationally,” he said. “It is a breathtaking irony that while her book helped spark a global reckoning for social media, she is unable to take part in the conversation, silenced by a company that claims to champion free speech.”

Giuffre killed herself in April 2025, shortly before the publication of Nobody’s Girl. She began working on the memoir with journalist Amy Wallace in 2020, documenting both the abuse she alleged she suffered and the years she spent battling powerful individuals and institutions. She was a prominent accuser of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who repeatedly and strongly denied the accusations.

Accepting the award through a recorded message, Wallace said: “We worked together for more than four years, and it was the honour of my career … She always wanted this book to reach as many people as possible, and she particularly wanted it to help other survivors of sexual abuse, not just those who suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but anyone who’s been coerced into a sexual situation, and she’s clearly done that.”

Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, said she had “inspired millions upon millions” by “speaking truth to power”, adding that she showed “an ordinary person can do extraordinary things”.

The Freedom to Publish award has previously been given to authors including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Boris Akunin, whose books were banned in Russia after his criticism of Vladimir Putin.

Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of Index on Censorship, said the two books demonstrated how “the rich and powerful use legal pressure to try to silence those with less capital”. “The circumstances are very different and the stories are not morally comparable,” Steinfeld said, “but they share similarities.”

The British Book Awards celebrate authors, publishers and industry professionals across the UK book trade, in association with trade publisher The Bookseller. Elsewhere at this year’s awards, AF Steadman was named author of the year, Philippa Gregory won the fiction prize for Boleyn Traitor, and Florence Knapp took debut fiction book of the year for The Names, a bestselling novel exploring the long-term effects of domestic abuse.