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Sarah Wynn - Williams , Facebook ’s former school principal of Global Public Policy , testified before the U.S. Senate today about the companionship ’s relationship with China .
agree to Wynn - Williams , the company now love as Meta make directly with the Chinese Community Party ( CCP ) to “ cave U.S. interior security and betray American value , ” she said .
She alleges that Facebook created custom - built censorship tools for the CCP , which kick in a “ chief editor in chief ” extensive might over content temperance to the point that they could choose to keep out off divine service completely in certain regions of China or on certain dates , like the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre .
Meta denied Wynn - Williams ’ allegations .
“ Sarah Wynn - Williams ’ testimony is divorced from realness and riddled with off-key claims , ” said Ryan Daniels , a Meta spokesperson , in a statement to TechCrunch . “ While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest group in volunteer our services in China and details were widely account begin over a decade ago , the fact is this : we do not operate our serving in China today . ”
Wynn - Williams ’ testimony was highly foreknow . In March , she published a rule book about her time at Facebook called “ Careless People : A Cautionary Tale of Power , Greed , and Lost Idealism . ”
The day after the book was bring out , Meta won aninterim decisionfrom an umpire , which sound out that Wynn - Williams rape a non - disparagement clause that she signed when she leave the company . But Meta ’s desire to limit the book ’s reach seems to have had the polar effect — now , the book isNo . 2 on The New York Times Best Sellers listunder non - fiction .
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Meta tell TechCrunch that the arbitration order does not prohibit her from address to Congress and that the caller does not intend to step in with her legal rights . The company also said it ’s not a secret that it does occupation in China .
Per Meta ’s own 10 - Kfiling , it made $ 18.3 billion in revenue for 2024 , up from $ 13.69 billion and $ 7.4 billion in 2023 and 2022 , respectively .
Wynn - Williams take that Meta ’s relationship with the Chinese government play deeply , though .
She shared document with Congress , and Senator Josh Hawley ( R - MO ) showed some redacted variant of these documents in the hearing .
In one email , it appeared that Facebook executives had discuss granting the CCP access to user data point from China and Hong Kong .
“ Facebook appears to have been willing to provide the data of users in Hong Kong to the Formosan government at a time when pro - democracy protesters were play off Beijing ’s crackdown , ” Senator Richard Blumenthal ( D - CT ) said , then enquire Wynn - Williams if that is on-key . She said it is .
“ As part of the security review instrument that was develop , there were virality counters — so any clip a slice of mental object got over 10,000 view , that would mechanically set off it being reviewed by what they call the master editor , ” she said . “ What was particularly surprising is that the virality counters were not just install , but activate in Hong Kong and also in Taiwan . ”
Senator Blumenthal pointed out that Zuckerberg had antecedently denied under oath that Facebook had work up censorship tool to enter the Chinese marketplace .
Wynn - Williams bring that if Meta were to share Chinese user data with the Chinese governance , from a technological perspective , she does n’t think there would be a elbow room to avoid share user information from Americans who had interacted with Taiwanese substance abuser .
She also claimed that Meta had brief China on development with various technologies like AI and facial recognition .
“ The majuscule trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was wrapping the American iris around himself and calling himself a nationalist , and saying he did n’t offer up services in China , while he spend the last decade ramp up an 18 billion - dollar clientele there , ” Wynn - Williams said before the Senate .
“ And he continues to wrap the flag around himself as we move into the next era of unreal intelligence , ” she added .
