Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former executive at Facebook, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, making serious allegations against the social media giant for undermining national security.
Wynn-Williams accused the company of briefing China regarding U.S. artificial intelligence efforts to bolster its business in the region.
“We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China. And during my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public,” she stated in her prepared testimony.
Her recent book, “Careless People,” which provides an insider’s account of her experiences at the company, sold 60,000 copies in its first week and quickly made it to the top 10 of Amazon’s best-seller list.
This wave of success comes amidst efforts by Meta to discredit her work and prevent her from publicly discussing her time with the organization.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, noted during the hearing that Meta had initiated a “campaign of threats and intimidation” against Wynn-Williams to silence her.
Wynn-Williams served as director of global public policy at Facebook, now known as Meta, from 2011 until she was terminated in 2017.
“Throughout those seven years, I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values. They did these things in secret to win favor with Beijing and build an 18 billion dollar business in China,” she remarked in her testimony.
Additionally, she recounted an incident where Meta allegedly deleted the Facebook account of Guo Wengui, a prominent Chinese dissident residing in the U.S., in response to pressure from the Chinese government.
Meta claims that the account was removed due to violations of its policies regarding personally identifiable information, which included sharing sensitive data such as passport numbers and home addresses.
Wynn-Williams further asserted that Meta ignored critical warnings that establishing a “physical pipeline” between the United States and China could grant the Chinese government backdoor access to U.S. user data.
These plans, known as the Pacific Light Cable Network, ultimately did not come to fruition, which Wynn-Williams attributes to intervention from lawmakers.
In response to the testimony, Meta issued a statement labeling Wynn-Williams’ claims as “divorced from reality” and filled with inaccuracies.
While Mark Zuckerberg has publicly expressed interest in providing services within China, the company emphasized that it does not currently operate in the region, countering Wynn-Williams’ allegations.
In recent months, Zuckerberg and other leaders in Big Tech have sought to enhance their relations with the Trump administration, engaging in various activities including visits to Mar-a-Lago and the White House.
However, it remains uncertain if these efforts have yielded any positive results.
Wynn-Williams described Zuckerberg as a figure who dons various personas, stating, “This is a man who wears many different costumes. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child, he was learning Mandarin, he was censoring to his heart’s content.
Now his new costume is MMA fighting or… free speech. We don’t know what the next costume is gonna be, but it will be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.”
The Senate hearing comes just days before Meta is set to face a massive antitrust trial, with the Federal Trade Commission poised to challenge the tech giant, potentially forcing it to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.
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