Meta is accused of violating U.S. national security by providing information to China.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former executive at Meta, accuses the social media company of undermining national security by providing information to China about the United States' artificial intelligence (AI) efforts.
A former Meta executive testified before a U.S. Senate committee that the company shared information with China about U.S. AI efforts in order to expand its business in China. "During my time at Meta, company executives lied to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party," said Sarah Wynn-Williams, accusing the company of undermining national security. Wynn-Williams served as the director of global public policy at Facebook, now Meta, from 2011 until she was fired in 2017. "Throughout those seven years, I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values," she continued. "They did this secretly to ingratiate themselves with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China." Wynn-Williams stated that Meta ignored warnings that building a "physical pipeline" between the U.S. and China would give China backdoor access to U.S. user data. She mentioned that while the plans never materialized, lawmakers intervened. Wynn-Williams is also the author of a book titled "Careless People," which recounts her time at the social media company. The book sold 60,000 copies in its first week and entered the top 10 on Amazon's bestseller list. Senator Richard Blumenthal said during the hearing that Meta used a "campaign of threats and intimidation" to silence the former executive.
Meta, in a statement to the Associated Press (AP), said Wynn-Williams's testimony was "detached from reality and filled with false claims." The statement continued: "[CEO] Mark Zuckerberg himself publicly stated our interest in providing our services in China, and the details have been widely reported for over a decade; the fact is we do not operate our services in China today." Wynn-Williams also mentioned that Meta deleted the Facebook account of a prominent Chinese dissident living in the U.S. under pressure from China. Meta told AP that billionaire Guo Wengui's account violated Facebook's rules because it shared individuals' passport numbers, social security numbers, national identification numbers, and home addresses. In recent months, Zuckerberg and other Big Tech executives have been trying to mend relations with the Trump administration through visits to the White House and Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against the tech giant could force the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.