Sarah Wynn-Williams, the lawyer and former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook who authored “Careless People,” a tell-all memoir that shares her account of working at Facebook for seven years, testified before Congress on Wednesday alleging Facebook’s close relationship with China poses serious risks to US national security.
Within a week of its publication last month, the book made it to the New York Times' bestseller list, prompting Meta to hit Wynn-Williams with a gag order banning her from promoting the book, alleging that it violated a nondisparagement contract she signed with the company more than a decade ago.
Despite the gag order, she agreed to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism last week.
Here's a recap of what she shared:
- She had a first-row glimpse into Meta's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and saw Meta work “hand in glove” with Chinese officials.
- Part of that relationship included a secret mission to get Facebook into China.
- Meta executives began briefing China on critical emerging technology in the US, including AI, as far back as 2015, with the goal to “help China outcompete American companies.”
- Meta created censorship tools and deleted the account of a Chinese dissident living in America at the request of the CCP, before lying about it to Congress.
- Zuckerberg was personally invested in Meta's business relationship with China, was committed to learning Mandarin, and had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees.
- Meta executives lied about what they were doing with the CCP to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.
- Meta has an $18.3B business in China, despite what it says.
- Facebook developed technology to identify when teenagers were feeling worthless or helpless and would share that information with advertisers so that they could pitch their products at this opportune time.
- She has documents to prove all of the above.
Wynn-Williams said, “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.”
You can read her full testimony here.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who led the bipartisan hearing, sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg the next day requesting his testimony before the subcommittee, writing, “The American people deserve to know the truth about your company.”
Speaking of shady shit that Meta does… Meta added a former Trump advisor named Dina Powell McCormick, alongside Stripe CEO Patrick Collision, to its board of directors, effective April 15th. The appointments come right as Meta prepares to fight a landmark challenge from the FTC in an antitrust lawsuit over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.