Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams told senators in testimony Wednesday on Capitol Hill that the social media company worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese government to censor its platforms, among other allegations.
“I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values,” Wynn-Williams said in her opening remarks, which were obtained by CBS News before the hearing.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism and led the bipartisan hearing, said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “made censorship his business model.”
“The evidence that we have in black and white is a company and leadership that is willing to do anything, anything, work with America’s chief competitor, work with our chief adversary,” Hawley said.
Hawley sent a letter to Zuckerberg Thursday requesting his testimony before the subcommittee, writing, “The American people deserve to know the truth about your company.”
Wynn-Williams began working at Meta, then known as Facebook, as the director of Global Public Policy in 2011. In her almost seven years with the company, Wynn-Williams told the panel she witnessed the company provide “custom built censorship tools” for the Chinese Communist Party. She said a Chinese dissident living in the United States was removed from Facebook in 2017 after pressure from Chinese officials. Facebook said at the time it took action against the regime critic, Guo Wengui, for sharing someone else’s personal information.
Wynn-Williams described the use of a “virality counter” that flagged posts with over 10,000 views for review by a “chief editor,” which Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called “an Orwellian censor.” These “virality counters” were used not only in Mainland China, but also in Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to Wynn-Williams’s testimony.
Wynn-Williams also told senators Chinese officials could “potentially access” the data of American users. When Meta engineers expressed concern about data security, Wynn-Williams testified that Meta leadership, including Zuckerberg, were indifferent.
Wynn-Williams testified Zuckerberg was “personally invested” in Meta’s business relationship with China, claiming he committed to learning Mandarin and “had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees.”
Wynn-Williams alleged Meta’s artificial intelligence model known as “Llama” was used to help DeepSeek. DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company that sent shockwaves through the American technology industry earlier this year when its AI model was shown to be competitive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost.
In a statement last year on Llama, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote, “The alleged role of a single and outdated version of an American open-source model is irrelevant when we know China is already investing over 1T to surpass the US technologically, and Chinese tech companies are releasing their own open AI models as fast, or faster, than US ones.”
Wynn-Williams encouraged senators to continue investigating Meta’s role in the development of artificial intelligence in China, as they continue their probe into the social media company founded by Zuckerberg.
“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.
In response to her opening statement, a Meta spokesperson called Wynn-Williams’ testimony “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,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta, which changed its name from Facebook in 2021, operates some of the most popular social media platforms in the United States, including its previous namesake Facebook as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.
Washington is taking a more aggressive posture toward China and its growing threat to American economic interests and national security. The Trump administration increased tariffs on imported goods from China to 125% Wednesday. The administration also continues to pursue the sale of TikTtok, a short-form video platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance, to an American buyer. And on Capitol Hill in 2023, the House of Representatives created the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to investigate China’s challenge to American global power.
In March, Wynn-Williams published a memoir called “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism” about her time at Meta.