A former high-ranking Facebook executive, Sarah Wynn-Williams, made serious allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, claiming the social media behemoth jeopardized U.S. national security. She stated that the company shared information about American artificial intelligence initiatives with China in an attempt to expand its business interests in the region.
"We are in a critical AI competition with China. During my tenure at Meta, company leaders misrepresented their interactions with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, stakeholders, Congress, and the American people," Wynn-Williams asserted in her prepared statement.
Wynn-Williams' book, "Careless People," which provides a revealing look inside her time at the social media company, quickly became a bestseller, selling 60,000 copies in its first week and reaching the top 10 on Amazon.com. These events happened while Meta allegedly tried to discredit the book and prevent her from sharing her experiences. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut stated during the hearing that Meta employed a "campaign of threats and intimidation" to silence the former executive.
Wynn-Williams was the director of global public policy at Facebook, which is now known as Meta, from 2011 until her dismissal in 2017.
"Throughout those seven years, I witnessed Meta executives consistently undermine U.S. national security and betray American values to gain favor with Beijing and establish an $18 billion business in China," she declared in her prepared remarks.
Wynn-Williams also alleged that Meta, under pressure from China, removed the Facebook account of a prominent Chinese dissident residing in the United States.
In response, Meta issued a statement asserting that Wynn-Williams' testimony "is detached from reality and full of false accusations. While Mark Zuckerberg has publicly discussed our interest in offering our services in China for over a decade, we do not currently operate our services there."
The hearing occurred just before the start of Meta's significant antitrust trial. The Federal Trade Commission's case against the tech company could potentially force it to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.