A former Meta executive, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has come forward as a whistleblower, accusing the company of compromising US national security to establish a substantial business presence in China.
According to Wynn-Williams, Meta executives made decisions that allowed the Chinese Communist Party to access user data, including that of Americans. This testimony was given during a congressional hearing led by Senator Josh Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism.
"I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values," Wynn-Williams said in her opening remarks per CBS News.
Wynn-Williams alleges that Meta built custom censorship tools for the Chinese government, enabling extensive control over content moderation.
Sen Hawley opened the hearing by saying that Meta had "stopped at absolutely nothing to prevent" Wednesday's testimony by Ms Wynn-Williams. He also said, "Why is it that Facebook is so desperate to prevent this witness from telling what she knows?"
"The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was wrapping the American flag around himself and calling himself a patriot and saying he didn't offer services in China, while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business there," she said.
Meta disputes these claims, stating that Wynn-Williams' testimony is "divorced from reality and riddled with false claims". However, Wynn-Williams maintains that Meta's actions were deliberate,...
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