Meta whistleblower tells Congress that tech company would do anything to build a business in China

An ex-Facebook executive turned corporate whistleblower told lawmakers Wednesday that her former employer, now called Meta, was so eager to build its business in China and please the country’s authoritarian leaders that the social media giant agreed to censor, spy on or shut down user accounts at Beijing’s behest.

Sarah Wynn-Williams, who spent about seven years with the company founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg as director of global policy, told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that senior Meta employees worked “hand in glove” with officials in Beijing to build an $18 billion business in China.

She said Meta worked with the Chinese Communist Party to construct censorship tools to silence the regime’s critics. When Beijing wanted the Facebook account of a Chinese dissident living in the U.S. shut down, the company complied, Ms. Wynn-Williams said.

“Their willingness to censor was not the only troubling thing I witnessed,” she said.

In a statement, Meta said Ms. Wynn-Williams’ testimony “is divorced from reality and riddled with false claims. While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”

Ms. Wynn-Williams said China is now Meta’s second-biggest market and accused the company of allowing Beijing to use Meta’s AI model to help with China’s own technological advances. She also accused Meta executives of providing China with access to user data, including that of Americans.

“I have the documents,” Ms. Wynn-Williams said.

Her book “Careless People,” an explosive insider account of her time at t he company, reached the top 10 on Amazon’s bestseller list amid efforts by Meta to discredit the work and stop her from talking about her experience .

Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said Facebook didn’t want Wednesday’s hearing to happen because the whistleblower’s senior status with Facebook indicates that she wasn’t merely a disgruntled lower-tier employee.

“She was a part of the Facebook brass and they have gone scorched earth to prevent her from telling what she knows,” Mr. Hawley said. “Sarah Wynn-Williams knows the truth about Facebook and that’s what they fear.”

She said Meta’s secret scheme to tap into the Chinese market was discussed on a “need-to-know” basis inside the company. She said Meta built a data pipeline connecting the U.S. and China, despite warnings from some employees that it could provide Beijing with backdoor access to U.S. users, allowing them to intercept personal information and private messages.

Mr. Hawley said Meta has attempted to destroy Ms. Wynn-Williams’ reputation and threatened her with $50,000 in punitive damages any time she mentions the company’s name in public.

“Why is it that Facebook is so desperate? What is it that they are so afraid of?” Mr. Hawley said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, accused Meta of waging a campaign of threats and intimidation in an attempt to silence Ms. Wynn-Williams.

“Meta will stop at nothing to dispel, disguise and deceive. It has done it to Congress and to the American people,” he said. “Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China.”

Mr. Zuckerberg, along with other Big Tech executives, have been trying to improve their standing with President Trump’s administration in recent months — through visits to Mar-a-Lago and the White House, as well as monetary donations — it’s not yet clear if the efforts are paying off.