Former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams told a US Senate subcommittee on Wednesday that the tech giant undermined its self-proclaimed free speech values and put the country’s national security at risk by vigorously pursuing business opportunities in China.

Wynn-Williams last month released an explosive tell-all memoir that alleged she witnessed first-hand how the company’s leadership curried favor with authoritarian regimes and ignored harms its platform poses to users. Wynn-Williams, who served as a former global policy director for the social media giant until she was fired in 2017, also alleged that company leaders sexually harassed her.

Meta has said the tell-all is a “mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.” Last month, the company secured an order from an arbitrator barring Wynn-Williams from speaking out or promoting the book under a non-disparagement agreement she signed when she left the company.

Nonetheless, Wynn-Williams accepted the invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, largely focusing her remarks on the company’s courtship of China.

“This may be the last time that I’m allowed to speak,” she said as the session drew to a close.

Her testimony sparked indignation from the crime and counterterrorism subcommittee, whose chairman, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), pledged to lead a “full investigation” into the matter.

Key moments included:

–Wynn-Williams sharply called into question Meta’s stated commitment to free speech, alleging the company worked on tools to help China stifle dissidents. “Mark Zuckerberg pledged himself a free speech champion, yet I witnessed Meta work hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party to construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored their critics,” she said in her opening remarks.

–Wynn-Williams alleged that Meta and its leadership misled Congress and shareholders about the nature of its interactions with the Chinese government, claims that could expose Meta to legal risk. The former executive said she has filed whistleblower complaints with federal authorities and urged Meta’s board to investigate the matter.
–Senators repeatedly decried Meta’s efforts to muzzle Wynn-Williams and stop her from appearing before the committee. “Facebook is one of the most powerful companies in the world, it is one of the most powerful companies in the history of the world, and they have stopped at absolutely nothing to prevent today’s testimony,” Hawley said.
–Below is a lightly edited transcript of the hearing, “A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress.” Please refer to the official audio when quoting.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism is called to order. I want to welcome everybody to today’s hearing, the title of which is, “A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress.”

Let me just say as we begin, this is a hearing that Facebook has tried desperately to prevent. Facebook is one of the most powerful companies in the world. It is one of the most powerful companies in the history of the world. And they have stopped at absolutely nothing to prevent today’s testimony. They’ve absolutely gone to war to try to prevent it. Our witness today is a whistleblower, and not just a whistleblower, but a longtime executive at Facebook. She worked directly with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and the Facebook brass, she was a part of the Facebook brass, and they have gone scorched earth to prevent her from telling what she knows. They’ve sued her, they have ought a gag order against her, they have begged courts to take her book off of the shelves, they tried to get it stopped from being printed in the first place. They have threatened her—get this— with $50,000 in punitive damages every time she mentions Facebook in public. $50,000 every time she mentions Facebook in public, even if the statements she is making are true, and even as we sit here today, Facebook is attempting her total and complete financial ruin, they are attempting to destroy personally, they are attempting to destroy her reputation, and I think the question is why.

Why is that Facebook is so desperate to prevent Facebook from telling what she knows? What is it that they are so afraid of? Well we are going to find out today. And I think we’ve already got a sense of it. Sarah Wynn-Williams knows the truth about Facebook. That’s what they fear. She knows that while Mark Zuckerberg now claims to be a champion of the United States and claims to be a free speech warrior, he in fact worked hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party for years. He in fact made censorship his business model. He in fact developed censorship tools for the Chinese Communist Party to use against its own people. He in fact made Americans’ own user data available, was willing to make it available to Beijing.

The truth is Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have lied to the American people, repeatedly. And I think as we’ll see today they have lied to Congress as well. It’s time for this to stop. That’s why this committee has launched a full-scale investigation into the potential illegal behavior of Facebook today’s hearing is one step in that investigation. Ms. Wynn-Williams’ testimony is absolutely essential to that investigation. It is why we invited her to be hear today and it is why she accepted. Facebook does not want you to hear what she has to say. I dare say China probably doesn’t want you to hear what she has to say. But we are going to get the truth. And we’re going to get the truth, starting now. I’m delighted to have with me the Ranking Member, both for the subcommittee and for the full Judiciary Committee, Senator Durbin, and I’ll turn it over to him.

Sen. Dick Durbin (R-IL):

Thanks, Chairman Hawley. Thank you, Ms. Wynn-Williams for agreeing to testify, particularly under these circumstances. You join other whistleblowers including Frances Haugen and Arturo Bejar, who have bravely come before Congress to detail how Meta aka Facebook, one of the biggest companies in the world, consistently chooses profits and growth over people and safety. Meta chooses to target vulnerable teenagers to drive engagement and increase ad spending, knowing the risk it poses to teen mental health. Meta chooses to feed its users inflammatory content to drive engagement and increase ad spending knowing the harm it can cause. Meta chooses to put human rights concerns aside if it mean access to more users, more growth, more dollars.

During the timeframe Ms. Wynn-Williams documents in her book, I was pressing Facebook on its potential cooperation with the Chinese government. I was Chair in this room of the Human Rights and Law Subcommittee working with the staunch Republican, conservative like Tom Coburn. We held hearings on the human rights implications of Big Tech operating in countries with repressive governments. And sent interrogatories to Facebook on the issue. The company flatly declined to appear, claiming they had nothing to say on the issue. Here’s what I said in the hearing room at the time, quote, we asked Facebook to testify, and they said we have no business operations in China, and for that matter in most of the countries of the world, end quote. In retrospect these comments from Facebook were disingenuous at best. In one chapter, Ms. Wynn-Williams describes a board meeting with a company discussed ways to head off regulation and change the narrative surrounding Facebook. She writes that the board, quote, gets into conversation about what other companies or industries have navigated similar challenges, where they have to change a narrative that says they are a danger to society, extracting large profits, pushing all the negative externalities on to society an not giving back. Guess what model they chose? Big Tobacco. That analogy is apt. Like Big Tobacco decades ago, Big Tech tells us their products do no harm, like Big Tobacco Big Tech tells us they can be trusted. And like Big Tobacco they fight to prevent any regulation that might make them pay for the cost that their products impose on society. We’ve seen it time and time again in Congress.

Any effort to regulate Big Tech is met with millions and millions of dollars in ad campaigns, lobbying and other opposition. But Congress has fought this battle before, and we have won. Almost 40 years ago I was a member of the Hosue of Representatives. I introduced legislation to ban smoking on airplanes. The tobacco industry fought it tooth and nail. Once the smoking ban went into effect, it wasn’t long before smoking was banned in restaurants and public places. That one little law ultimately turned the tide against smoking in America. And it ultimately saved millions of lives. Thanks to people like Ms. Wynn-Williams, I feel like we are at a similar tipping point with Big Tech. The word is out. The shine is off. We can all see the harm that Big has caused from enabling the spread of CSAM and harming teen mental health, to facilitating repression in places like China and Myanmar. Last Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chaired, unanimously—unanimously, and that’s a big deal on this committee— reported five bills to regulate Big Tech and require online platforms to protect kids. This is no easy feat in these polarized times. One of these was STOP CSAM, which I introduced with Chairman Hawley, we are reintroducing it very soon; we’ll do what it takes to get this bill to the President’s desk so he can sign it. We can’t stop here, as Ms. Wynn-Williams makes clear in her book. Companies like Meta won’t do the right thing unless they are compelled to do it, that’s why I also joined with Chairman Hawley, Senator Graham and others to introduce a bill to sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. For nearly 30 years, Section 230 has shielded Big Tech from liability for the harms they cause. Only by removing that liability shield will Big Tech finally have to take the steps companies in all other industries have to take to protect their customers. Unless and until Congress imposes accountability on these companies, nothing will change. Children and society will continue to pay a price.

I hope this hearing and Ms. Wynn-Williams’ testimony can once again shine a spotlight on the need to regulate Big Tech and build momentum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Thank you. We’re delighted to have the Chairman of the full Committee, Senator Grassley, with us, and so I’m going to turn to Senator Grassley for an opening statement.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Thank you for exposing all this, or will be exposed. Thank you very much. In my 50 years as a member of the United States Congress, I’ve seen all kinds of whistleblower retaliation. I’ve seen it across all industries. The United States tech industry is not different. These tech companies sitting in those ivory towers in Silicon Valley look to silence whistleblowers. They want to keep these brave men and women from telling Congress, government regulators, and the entire American public about alleged wrongdoing at their companies. I’ve fought for whistleblowers my whole Congressional career, as author of updates to the False Claims Act, the IRS whistleblower program, many other whistleblower laws. Whistleblowers are key to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse whether it’s in government or in the private sector. Recently I wrote to OpenAI about their efforts to silence whistleblowers. To address this, I’m working on bipartisan legislation to implement whistleblower protection in the artificial intelligence industry.

Sadly, our witness, Ms. Sarah Wynn-Williams is facing down the barrel of a gun. Ms. Wynn-Wiliams is a former employee of Facebook. According to her attorneys, Meta is threatening her with fines of $50,000 each time shem akes a disparaging remark about the company. This can be easily abused to silence her for telling the truth. Thank you for bravely being here. This isn’t the first time I’ve investigated a tech company for exposing American’s data and sensitive technology to our adversaries. On September the 13th, 2022, as Ranking Member of this Committee, I, along with Senator Durbin, held a hearing on those very issues. A Twitter whistleblower named Peiter Zatko testified at that hearing. He disclosed to this committee that Twitter shared user information to foreign intelligence agencies, including the government of China. His disclosures made public that the FBI notified Twitter of at least Chinese agent in the company.

Now what’s different here, now? Well, the Chinese didn’t have to infiltrate Facebook. Facebook went to China. Ms. Williams has disclosed very troubling allegations. For example, she told my office that C-suite executives at Facebook rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese Communist government. According to our witness, Facebook executives agreed to provide the communists in China with access to user data, and build data storage facilities in China. This would obviously involve American data. Allegedly, Facebook also built censorship tools to block certain content from Chinese users, according to Ms. Wynn-Williams Facebook also gave the ruling Communist Party an its People’s Liberation Artmy briefings on artificial intelligence software. These briefings were done with the knowledge that they would assist the Chinese government in advancing its artificial intelligence program.

These actions have and can have dire consequences. These disclosures to Congress are exactly how it ought to be done. This whistleblower in my view has absolutely done the right thing, Ms. Wynn-Williams, I often say that whistleblowers are treated like skunks at a picnic. Unfortunately, you’ve experienced that already. Thank you for your courage and bravery for coming forward to Congress. We’ll be conducting a full investigation and ask Meta to fully cooperate. I’ll be in and out because of votes on the floor of the Senate, but I want to come back and ask a few questions.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

You bet, Mr. Chairman. And now let me turn to my good friend Senator Blumenthal, who has been a great friend of whistleblowers and also has been a champion of going against Big Tech.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Thank you, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your leadership on this Subcommittee and for having this hearing, and also on the Subcommittee that we chaired together on Technology and the Law, and I’m still hoping we will continue our work on AI, but your experience as a former law enforcement official as attorney general of your state, as I was of mine gives you a solid backing and interest and I think it reflects the importance of this subcommittee’s work that both the chairman and the running member of the full committee are here and that we have a bipartisan—bipartisan—group determined to get the truth. And let me just say right at the start, I just so tremendously admire your courage, Ms. Wynn-Williams, in standing up to Meta, a gigantic economic and political force, and to China, that would like to see you silenced as well, and is cheering from the sidelines or maybe not even from the sidelines what Meta is doing and what it is doing is absolutely despicable. It is disgusting and the height of hypocrisy for a supposed free speech champion, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta use a campaign of threats and intimidation to try to silence you. But it is part of a pattern. Meta is trying to buy and even bribe and pander its way out of any accountability. It has donated a $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. It started ripping up its policies on hate speech and letting fraud and abuse run rampant on its platforms.

And appallingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg has reportedly visited the White House three times to get the President to order the Federal Trade Commission to drop its antitrust case. Meta will stop at nothing to dispel and disguise and deceive. And it has done it to Congress. It has done it to Congress and to the American people. Meta lied about the generational harm it was doing to young people— suicide, eating disorders, and depression. And in fact as we know from another brave whistleblower who came to the commerce committee, one document provided to us showed that it was part of the Facebook/Meta business model to in effect addict kids to toxic content and destroy their lives.

One document you provided to us shows that Facebook’s advertising division was developing tools to target teens that were insecure and depressed. It was literally attempting to profit from the pain of young people. When it was caught lying about these harms, Senator Blackburn and I introduced the Kids Online Safety Act, KOSA, a bill that passed the Senate with a 91-3 vote, we’re hoping that it will pass again and this time pass the House. The Amreican people ought to be asking, has Facebook done anything to clean up its act? And the is no, it actually diverted its millions of dollars to try to stop KOSA. and it spent millions of dollars in lobbying to argue that antitrust and AI regulations harm national security. And unfortunately, all of this deception and pandering and buying, and you might even say bribing, has been effective so far, but the American people are going to be pretty outraged that Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China. That he imperiled our national security for a buck. That he comprised a highly significant American corporation for personal gain and profit.

And your allegations and testimony matter tremendously. Because you have credibility. You have nothing left to lose. You have your integrity. Mark Zuckerberg has lost his through his deception. And he oversaw and personally approved of plans that undermined American national security because his own engineers warned him that operating in China would expose Americans to Chinese surveillance and censorship. So he not only risked our national security but the individual security of everyday Americans, and they ought to be downright angry, outraged that he sold them out as well as America. He hid those risks from Congress. He and other Facebook executives provided testimony in hearing after hearing after hearing that was misleading at best and false. At worst, meadow has attempted to dismiss these allegations as just old news. Nothing to see here, nothing new. Well, people watching and listening to you, Ms. Wynn-Williams, will know the importance and impact of what you have revealed to the American people and to the world.

I have opened an investigation with Senator Ron Johnson on behalf of the permanent subcommittee on investigations, and we’ve demanded documents from Meta regarding its operations in China. The premise subcommittee on investigations is determined to use whatever tools and instruments and powers we have to get to the bottom of all of the facts here, and I really appreciate Senator Hawley’s support for that investigation. He has joined our efforts. He’s a member of the permanent subcommittee on investigations, and I look forward to our bipartisan, and it will be a bipartisan effort to continue this effort for truth. And again, thank you for being here. Thank you for your courage.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And now let me introduce someone who’s been a champion for privacy and for antitrust and standing up to these corporations. Senator Klobuchar.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

Thank you very much, Senator Hawley, and of course thank you to Senator Durbin and Blumenthal. I was listening to all of you and I was thinking how when we first started on this journey, it was pretty lonely. I think the first bill we did that I remember was the Honest Ads Act with Senator McCain, which we simply tried to get disclaimers on political ads that were on the platforms. Facebook initially opposed it and then did support it at the end. It still hasn’t been passed of all things because of all the lobbying, but since then there has been this big coalition of people I think based in part on, I haven’t read your book yet, but from what I understand, some of the things that you have pointed out that have brought people with us of all political stripes, and part of this is just the pushback whenever we try to do anything on antitrust when it comes to self preferencing products, and this is of all of the platforms together, the intense lobbying against any kind of move and even for things the companies agreed to do in other countries or when we try to do something as simple as fentanyl to try to put in place bills to make that be reported when it’s being sold on the platforms.

Senator Cruz and I lead the Take It Down Act that has gotten support from a number of the platforms, not originally that I believe is going to pass through the house that’s already passed through the Senate for non-consensual porn, both AI-created and actual. But there is so much more to do and I just keep nearly every hearing saying, if you want this to stop, then why don’t you work with us In supporting some of these major, major bills outside of some of the ones that I mentioned for too long, they have turned a blind eye when kids has pointed out by the other senators, joined their platforms, used algorithms that would spread harmful contact and of course provided a venue for drug dealers to the point where the former head of our drug enforcement agency said that the cartels in China and Mexico had basically harnessed. Those were her words harnessed. The platforms we know about the risks of mental illness, addiction, exploitation, even suicide for these kids that have their images, they put it out looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend and they’re so mortified and they’re so young that we’ve had over 20 suicides in one year according to the former FBI director, as you observed in your book, it really didn’t have to be this way. They could have chosen to do it all differently and fix so much of what’s been destructive, but they didn’t, so we must thank you.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Now let me introduce our witness. Sarah Wynn-Williams is the former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook. She’s a former New Zealand diplomat and international lawyer who first joined Facebook after pitching her own job. After leaving the company, she’s continued to work on tech policy including artificial intelligence. Now, all of that you can learn from reading the back of her book, but there’s more to it than that. She worked at Facebook from 2011 through 2017. She witnessed Facebook’s rise from a niche tech company to a global superpower capable of bullying nation states, and she wasn’t just some mid-level functionary. She worked closely with Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg. She arranged their meetings with world leaders across the globe. She heard their plans for China. She’s no ordinary whistleblower and she comes to tell us not merely about what has happened but also what is coming now. It is our practice is when Williams and the Judiciary Committee and its subcommittees to swear in our witnesses before they testify. So if you would, let me invite you to rise. Raise your right hand and we’ll get started. Do you swear that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you? God, thank you very much. We’d love to hear your opening statement. Take as long as you need

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Chairman Hawley, Ranking Member Durbin, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Sarah Wynn-Williams and I served as the Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, now Meta, for nearly seven years, starting in 2011. Throughout those seven years, I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values. They did these things in secret to win favor with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China. We are engaged in a high-stakes AI right arms race against China and during my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress and the American public. I sit before this committee today to set the record straight about these illegal and dangerous activities matters. Dishonesty started with a betrayal of core American values. Mark Zuckerberg pledged himself a free speech champion, yet I witnessed Meta work hand in glove with a Chinese communist party to construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored their critics.

When Beijing demanded that Facebook delete the account of a prominent Chinese dissident living on American soil, they did it and then lied to Congress. When asked about the incident in a Senate hearing, the willingness to censor was not the only troubling thing I witnessed. I watched as executives decided to provide the Chinese Communist Party with access to Meta user data, including that of Americans. Meta does not dispute these facts. They can’t. I have the documents as recently as this Monday, they claim that they do not operate their services in China. Another lie. In fact, they began offering products and services in China as early as 2014. That hasn’t stopped their own SEC filings from last year show that China is now Meta’s second biggest market. Meanwhile, Meta’s AI model Lama has contributed significantly to Chinese advances in AI technologies like deep seek.

Facebook’s secret mission to get into China was called Project Aldrin and was restricted to need to know staff. There was no bridge too far. Meta built a physical pipeline connecting the United States and China Meta executives ignored warnings. This would provide backdoor access to the Chinese Communist Party allowing them to intercept the personal data and private messages of American citizens. The only reason China does not currently have access to US user data through this pipeline is because Congress stepped in.

Meta started briefing the Chinese Communist Party as early as 2015. These briefings focused on critical emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, the explicit goal being to help China outcompete American companies. There’s a straight line you can draw from these briefings to the recent revelations that China is developing AI models for military use. Relying on Meta’s LLAMA model matters. Meta’s internal documents describe their sales pitch for why China should allow them into the market by helping China increase global influence and promote the China dream.

The truth about what has gone on in China matters. I filed a shareholder resolution asking Meta’s board to investigate its activity in China, and I filed whistleblower complaints with the SEC and the DOJ. The measure of how important these truths are is directly proportionate to the ferocity of Meta’s efforts to censor and intimidate me. I relied on their commitment, given in 2018, that they would waive their rights to pursue forced arbitration. Despite that public commitment, they’ve brought a case against me for hundreds of millions of dollars. Now they have a legal gag order that silences me even as Meta and their proxies spread lies about me. This order is so expansive that it prohibits me from speaking with members of Congress. The gag order was sought by a company whose CEO claims to be a champion of free speech. The American people deserve to know the truth. Meta has been willing to compromise its values, sacrifice the security of its users and undermine American interests to build its China business. It’s been happening for years, covered up by lies, and continues to this day. I am here at considerable personal risk because you have the power and the authority to hold them accountable. Thank you.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Thank you Ms. Wynn-Williams. We’re going to have eight minute rounds of questioning and I will start. Let me just start with something that you referenced. Ms. Wynn-Williams a moment ago. Facebook/Meta issued a statement again last night saying that they don’t do business in China. Now, is that true Facebook/Meta is not doing business in China. Is that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That is not accurate. Chairman Hawley, Facebook has a $18.3 billion business in China. And to give just one example, in 2014 it launched Oculus in China with a strategy of playing dumb and Oculus has continued to grow as a significant part of their business.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

In fact, they have since 2014, 2015, they have launched multiple apps in China often without, well, always without seeking authorization from this government, not informing their shareholders, not informing Congress, not informing the public, and now they have employees in China. Is that accurate? They have a partnership with Tencent in China. Is that accurate? Their Oculus VR businesses in China. Is that accurate? So tell me this, why has Facebook/Meta been so obsessed, if I can use that word, with breaking into the Chinese market? What is this all about?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

It is incredibly valuable for Meta.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Monetarily.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So we’re talking about profit at the end of the day.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

We are absolutely talking about profit.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Profit and power. Let’s talk about what Meta has been willing to do for profit and power. You said just a moment ago that Meta’s dishonesty started with the betrayal of core American values and you mentioned that Mark Zuckerberg has pledged himself as a free speech champion. I noticed he talks a lot now in the American media about free speech. I noticed he talks a lot when he goes to the White House about free speech and how Facebook won’t censor and Facebook will protect the rights of all. Have you ever known Mark Zuckerberg to censor on behalf of China?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes, Chairman Hawley.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Let’s talk about a few specific instances. In 2017, the Chinese dissident Guo Wengui suddenly had his Facebook profile shut down. Now Facebook at first said that this was a temporary glitch. Was that true to your knowledge?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

No, Senator Hawley.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

In fact, Facebook shut down this dissident’s page. This dissident, as you pointed out a moment ago, was living on American soil at the time, Facebook shut down that page based on pressure from the Chinese Communist Party. Is that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s accurate.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Let’s just take a look here at the documents. Here’s some meeting notes taken shortly after a conversation with a Mr. Chou who’s a communist Chinese party member, a government official here. Mr. Chou asks Facebook, it says to Facebook that they want Mr Guo’s Facebook page dealt with, the notes say that Chou wants Facebook in China, but there are others who don’t. So we need Facebook to take measures and do more in such situations to demonstrate we can address mutual interests and then they go on to list. Here’s what we could do. We could do nothing. We could say we could do something or we can do even more than expected, but we need to provide a response to the Chinese Communist Party on what we can do. So here we have evidence of high level contacts between Chinese Communist party officials and Facebook asking for this dissident page to be taken down Facebook acknowledging this pressure saying we need to do something if we want to get the party’s cooperation, the government’s cooperation. And what happened next?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Well, Senator Hawley, one thing, the Chinese Communist Party and Mark Zuckerberg share is that they want to silence their critics. I can say that from a personal experience. So I think they came to the right man. This led to a series of events where eventually this man on American soil was kicked off the platform.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So in April of 2017, following these conversations, Facebook takes down the profile, bans it, of Mr. Guo. Then in September they make that ban permanent. Now here’s the really interesting thing. When Facebook’s general counsel was asked about this directly under oath in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, he sang a different tune. Senator Rubio asked him directly, was there any pressure from the Chinese government to block his account? Was there any pressure to block his account? The general counsel, Mr. Stretch? No, Senator. We reviewed a report on that account and analyzed it through regular channels using regular procedures. Was this truthful testimony Ms. Wynn-Williams?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

No, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

It’s, in fact, an outright lie. Is it not?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

It is, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

We just saw the documentation. Facebook received not just a request, Facebook received direct pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and bowed to it and discussed it internally and planned it and then lied about it to Congress. Let’s talk about what else they’ve been able to do, been willing to do in order to get this access to the Chinese market. Let’s look at some more meeting notes. Here’s a reading. Here’s a readout of a group of Facebook engineers offering to create a censorship regime that will allow Facebook to block all traffic. The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t phase zero. This is an internal chat phase zero. We identify all traffic that are currently blocked in China and we Facebook block them. This is a test for us to see whether we can actually identify all traffic from China and then the chat continues. Yes, good way to build trust. And another Conversant says, great stuff guys, let’s do it. Give us some context here. Ms. Wynn-Williams. What are they talking about doing here? When they say block all content that China wants, we Facebook do it for them. What are they talking about?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They’re talking about activating their censorship tools on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So Facebook creates censorship tools that will allow them to assume the burden if you like, of censorship where they will do all of the censoring that the Chinese government was doing. Facebook would do it on their behalf. Is that right?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s my understanding.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And here you have Facebook employees celebrating it. Good way to build trust. They mean build trust with the Communist Chinese Party, right?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And great stuff guys. Let’s do it. Meaning they greenlit this and went forward to see if they could make it happen. Is that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s my understanding, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

All of this, let’s be clear. For a murderous regime in China, the most barbaric, most evil regime on the face of the planet and our free speech champion, Mark Zuckerberg is here with his team of engineers actively working to make Facebook censor on their behalf. Let me ask you this, what about user data? Ms. Wynn-Williams Facebook has said publicly many times, we would never compromise user data. It’s a red line in the sand. We’d never do that. Never, never, never. Was Facebook ever willing to share user data with the Chinese Communist Party.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

In fact, they had a plan for that, didn’t they? Here’s some more documents, internal documents update. I spoke with the China team yesterday. They flagged a potential complication arising from our negotiations with the Chinese government. I emphasize this is a Facebook document. Now these are Facebook executives in exchange for the ability to do operations in China, Facebook will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese user data. There it is in black and white. Facebook will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese user data including Hong Kongese user data. And then they talk about they’re going to have to get the Hong, their Hong Kong citizens to agree to terms of service so they can slide this right by them. This is extraordinary. Can I just ask you Ms. Wynn-Williams, was American’s user data ever compromised or they ever plan to compromise American user data in any way? Do you know?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

One of the challenges with the servicing a market as big as China was the internet infrastructure that would underpin that. So I mentioned the cable that they joined between the US and China and that would be very helpful in servicing this market, but it would still mean that the service would be slow. So they contemplated using pop servers and pop servers as a technical data that brings the data closer to the end user. The challenge with pop servers is that you can’t segregate data. It would have American data, it would have Chinese user data and it would be on Chinese soil.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So I want to just be clear about this here in this document, Facebook is talking about making Chinese user data available to the Chinese government because they’re going to store that data in China. Is that correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

But when you store that data in China, Americans who exchange messages or other information with Chinese Facebook users, that would mean the Chinese government could get access to the American data as well. Is that correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Through the pop servers potentially, yes.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And Facebook was willing to take that risk?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes, there was a lot of discussion about this and ultimately yes,

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

I mean this is extraordinary. This is exactly contrary to what Facebook has represented for years here. They’re willing to build data centers, store data in China. They are willing explicitly to give the Chinese government access to it. And if that means that American user data is also compromised, they’re willing to do that too. All for profits in China, there was virtually nothing they weren’t willing to do. Chairman Grassley,

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

And I’m only sitting over here because of your chart, I take very seriously adversaries having access to critical technology such as artificial intelligence. And I noted in my opening statement you made allegations about Matt’s efforts to help China’s government in that field. In your opening statement, you said that Meta’s goal was to help China outcompete American companies. Can you explain why they would want to do this and is there any documentation on that point?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Thank you, Senator. They saw, I guess part of the value proposition that they could provide the Chinese communist Party was their expertise in helping Chinese officials. So they explicitly, and I would be happy to provide you with the documentation, called out US firms. They said we can help you China not have to rely on firms like Cisco or IBM because we can help you with the technical expertise. So they were offering things like how to build more efficient data centers or how to ensure that engineers could better understand technology like photo tagging.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Okay. And by the way, that documentation would be appreciated. What was Meta’s ultimate goal when they briefed Chinese government on artificial intelligence tech technology and what information and technology did they provide?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So I think it links to this value proposition. Meta has some of the best minds of a generation. They’ve employed the smartest graduates working on cutting edge technologies like artificial intelligence. So who better if you’re the Chinese Communist party to teach you about these technologies than Meta in terms of understanding the extent of this, I think this is a really great area for your investigation.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Now that Facebook has changed its name to Matta. Is Matta currently providing the Chinese government with access to artificial intelligence technology?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So it’s been well reported that Chinese researchers have used the LAMA model both for AI weapons and also that LLAMA is part of what powers DeepSeek.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Please describe for the committee how Meta plan to share data from American citizens with the Chinese government. And for example, did Meta have any agreements with the communist Chinese government to provide them with the data and if so, do they still have those agreements as far as you can tell that you’ve been gone from the company.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So part of the challenge, as I mentioned, was building the internet infrastructure to support their China ambitions and it was through that internet infrastructure that they would gain access to potentially American citizens’ data. I think again, this is another very good area to investigate and get further information directly from the company.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Who at Meta facilitated these conversations, and what officials in the Chinese government did Meta staff meet with?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So there were many meetings between the Chinese Communist Party and Meta. So right from the top, Mark Zuckerberg met with Lu Wei, there were lots of visits back and forth between Beijing and Menlo Park. There were lots of meetings with senior politburo, senior CCP members and I’d be happy to provide more documentation on this to the committee.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):

Okay. Then my last question follows on where Chairman Hawley left off. If there’s anything that you can add to this. You don’t have to repeat what you told him, but describe to the committee how Meta planned to share data from American citizens with the Chinese government and for I don’t think I’m going to ask that question. I think you covered it. Well, thank you Senator. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Thank you Chairman Grassley, thank you for being here. Thank you for these questions. Ms. Wynn-Williams. Can I just go back to something you said a moment ago in response to Senator Grassley and maybe let’s just start at the beginning. So is it your testimony that Facebook executives and employees cultivated relationships with members of the Chinese Communist Party?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And this happened over a period of years.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

This happened over many years.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And did members of the Facebook executive team or other employees at Facebook Meta ever brief members of the Chinese Communist Party?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes. Senator, regularly.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Exchanged information with them.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes. Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

What are some of the topics that they covered in these briefings?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I mean it’s incredibly broad. So you had meetings at the top executive level, so Mark and Cheryl, and you had meetings all the way down to regular engineers who would be providing briefings on cutting-edge technology like facial recognition, which is obviously very helpful to the Chinese Communist Party. Facebook Live, as I mentioned, photo tagging, internet infrastructure, sorry. So how to build effective data centers. Facebook has a project called the Open Compute Project, which has five Chinese companies as a member of it. So it was at every level on every aspect of the many different technologies that Facebook has.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

You testified a moment ago that one of the things that part of their value proposition to China was that they would help them Facebook that is, would help China outcompete other American businesses. Can you just say more about that? I mean that seems like an extraordinary thing to me here you have an American company going to our chief foreign adversary on whom we currently have tariffs of like 10000000000% and saying, Hey, we’d love to help you. We would love to help you beat all of these other American companies. That’s extraordinary. I mean, what can you tell us about that?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I mean I’d be happy to provide the documentation. I mean literally the documents in which they were writing this that were called our value proposition to be put before the CCP.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So was information related to artificial intelligence part of these briefings? I know you said that there were some sort of informal discussions, but did Facebook actually members of the CCP on artificial intelligence to your knowledge?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes. Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And again, was that a once-off or was this a regular thing?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, I think this is a great area of investigation for your committee.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So why would you were at Facebook a long time, why would Facebook want to help China with artificial intelligence? I mean, what’s the strategy there do you think? What do you define the intent to have been?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So I think we’ve talked about the general focus of the company of wanting to help China. This is over a period of time where China was rapidly trying to increase its own technological expertise and trying to grow its own homegrown technology company. So it’s incredibly valuable to have the brightest minds in the world show you how that technology works, if that was, and then I think there’s, at the moment, as you’re aware, there’s a debate in the AI community around whether open source models or closed models are more appropriate. And one of the considerations around that is national security, but it’s not clear at this moment whether open source models or closed models will ultimately prevail. And there’s a lot of money on the line in some ways you could say it’s helpful if you want open source to prevail, to have a strong threat from a Chinese model so that you can say it’s really important that America wins this and we are the American open source option. And I think you can see the way that strategically plays out.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So what you’re saying is Facebook’s AI model LLAMA, I think it’s called, that’s an open source model, is that right?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And I think they just released LLAMA-4 or something just recently, the last few days. So that’s an open source model. Many of the other American competitors, San Altman’s company for example, OpenAI is a closed sourced model, closed source code. So Facebook has a fundamentally different, take an open source model. They’re briefing the Chinese government, including CCP officials on this model on their information. And then we get the revelation of deep seek just a few months ago. As China sort of breakthrough on ii, do you think that llama had something to do with DeepSeek? Do you think that that information sharing helped lead to DeepSeek?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think it’s been widely reported that the DeepSeek model is in part based on LLAMA.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And so just playing this out, if China’s deeps seek model, another open source model I think becomes the chief competitor to these other models in the United States. What you’re saying is is that it stands to reason, and this is something for us to look into certainly, but it stands to reason that in a way Facebook would benefit from that because you’ve got this thread in deep seek. Facebook is the only other really major American open source model out there. The others aren’t built on that platform. So Facebook’s, their profile is raised, the significance of their model is raised and maybe they become more important than ever. I mean is that stand to reason?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think it’s a winner takes all situation and I think that that would set up Meta in a very strong position.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And as usual with Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, they intend to win and take all. Senator Blumenthal, if you’re ready, I’ll turn it over to you.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. In order to operate in China, the communist party requires American companies to register with authorities and host servers inside the country. And I think it’s pretty well known that Chinese law requires that security services are allowed access to any data hosted within the country. Did any of Facebook’s security team or its engineers raised concerns to management about American’s private information being exposed to Chinese spying?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes, Senator. They did.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

How did they do that?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They documented their concern in a number of ways. They noted that this would happen, that the Chinese would get access to the data and they also noted their concern in other discussions and other documentation saying, my red line is a security engineer is to not be comfortable with this. But my red line is not Mark Zuckerberg’s red line.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Maybe you can explain what you mean by that.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

The engineer was saying that they were not comfortable with the way the China project was structured that would allow the Chinese Communist Party to potentially access American citizens’ data. But in saying that they noted that that’s a red line for me as a security engineer. That’s not Mark Zuckerberg’s red line.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Did you sense he had any red line?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I did not.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

If he did, you don’t know what it was.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I don’t.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

If you have more information related to these spying risks, would you be willing to share it with the committee?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I would, Senator.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And I, Mark Zuckerberg was knowledgeable about the planning. And do you know whether he was knowledgeable about the risks as well?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

My understanding is that the risk is the hardest part of the plan. So it’s unthinkable that he was not aware of the risk.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Nothing happened here without his approval and knowledge.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

This was a project unlike any other project I worked on during my time at Meta and that it was so centrally led by Mark Zuckerberg and he was so personally invested in this project. He learned Mandarin, he traveled to China more than any other country. He had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees. It is hard to overstate how different this project was to any other project I experienced in my many years at the company.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

So there would be no credibility to his denying that he knew about the risks, he knew about the concerns raised by his engineers and his China team, and he was intimately involved in not only the planning and the engineering, but also in taking those risks.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

He was traveling to Beijing.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

In the documents submitted to the subcommittee, Facebook appears to have been willing to provide the data of users in Hong Kong to the Chinese government at a time when pro-democracy protestors were opposing Beijing’s crackdown. Is that impression correct. And how did Facebook treat Taiwan or Hong Kong?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

So that impression is correct, and one of the more surprising things is that as part of the censorship tool that was developed, there were virality counters. So anytime a piece of content got over 10,000 views, that would automatically trigger it being reviewed by what they called the chief editor. And what was particularly surprising is that the virality counters were not just installed but activated in Hong Kong and also in Taiwan.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Let me ask you, I raised in my remarks, and I know that a number of other colleagues did as well, the record of misrepresentation and deceit. One of our former colleagues, Senator Lahey, asked Mark Zuckerberg in 2018 whether Facebook would comply with Chinese censorship and surveillance demand. He even asked if Facebook had built censorship tools to enter the Chinese market. And Zuckerberg responded, I’m quoting because Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009. We are not in a position to know exactly how the government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content. Were we permitted to offer our service to Chinese users, Ms. Williams? Was that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That is not accurate. Hundreds of decisions had been made and by 2018 they’d been in dialogue directly with the Chinese Communist Party for four years.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

The fact is by 2018, Facebook built, it even turned on censorship and surveillance tools that it developed. It developed for Chinese security officials. Correct.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

It developed. And those Chinese Communist party officials tested the censorship tool and would give feedback and say, this needs to change or we need this or we need confidence that you can capture images and filter images. We don’t want seen it.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

We talk a lot about 1984, Facebook developed a virility counter tool that directed any posts of over 10,000 views to be reviewed by an Orwellian named chief editor. Is that correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And was the chief editor’s geographic reach limited to mainland China or did they plan to cover other locations?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They planned to cover Hong Kong and Taiwan, is my understanding.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

So their surveillance operation was directed at Taiwan.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s my understanding, Senator.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And Hong Kong.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s my understanding.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Was the editor in chief’s or the chief editor’s power limited to reviewing viral posts?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Oh no. Is it extensive power? The chief editor would be able to turn off the entire service in specific regions, for example, Xinjiang, or would also be able to turn off or manage the service on significant anniversaries like the anniversary of Town and Square.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

The chief editor, a creation of Facebook was an Orwellian sensor that applied to locations outside mainland China to Taiwan and Hong Kong to people not within the legal of China, but also obviously the Chinese themselves. And it was designed and implemented by Meta and Mark Zuckerberg?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct. Senator.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Even though its very existence was denied before this committee in 2018?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct, Senator.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Silicon Valley companies are famous as you know for their moonshot programs such as Google X. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg spent billions of dollars on the metaverse and AI. He even named or renamed the company as part of a pivot to focus on that technology. Did Facebook engage in any moonshot efforts in China and were these efforts walled off or protected from the Communist party?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They did. Senator, and I’d be happy to follow up with the committee on this point.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

You’d prefer to follow up privately? Yeah. Just one last question. I’m interested in how much of a national champion Meta actually is for the United States. Did Facebook share information about its facial recognition, artificial intelligence models, and other sensitive technologies to Chinese security officials? In other words, did it share that significant technology regarding facial recognition and other surveillance methods?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Look, 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.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And he wrapped the flag around himself even as he disclosed sensitive technologies that enabled the Chinese to gain the upper hand on surveilling its citizens, but also, oh yeah, okay. The upper hand in engaging with us.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

And he continues to wrap the flag around himself as we move into the next era of artificial intelligence.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Thank you Senator. Senator Blackburn.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am delighted that we are having this hearing today. Thank you for this. And Ms. Wynn-Williams, I want to thank you for stepping forward and for speaking. Senator Blumenthal and I last year brought forward the Kids Online Safety Act and this is a piece of legislation we have worked on for years. It came through the Senate on a 91 to three vote. It failed in the House as you would imagine. Meta spent millions of dollars lobbying against us and the legislation while at the same time they were claiming how much they cared for children and how they wanted to take care of children. And of course one of the problems, as we have heard these heartbreaking stories from parents of trying to reach out to meta, no response of the cyber-bullying that was taking place, the pleas from principals and child psychiatrist to do something and yet they would not do it.

And I noted in your book that you talked about meta targeting children with ads based on their emotional state. And if you want to talk about something that is cruel, I’m a mom and a grandmom, and to kick a kid when they’re down, that in essence is what it is, is kicking them while they’re down. That is completely disgusting. And I find it so interesting that Mark Zuckerberg has said he’s turned over a new leaf. My response to that was leaves change color with the seasons of the year. And I am curious as to whether this is a season for him or if it is something that is truly going to be making a difference. And I think he should explain to us he’s been before this committee before where he truly is now. One of the things we found out from other whistleblowers, and you mentioned in your lie in your book that Meta’s statement denying it engaged in targeting children was a flat out lie and the company had refused to audit these activities. We’ve heard that from other whistleblowers that they were doing research and they knew what was happening, but they were so given to the dollar and having children as the product that they themselves children were addicted, but also Facebook and their leadership team had become addicted to the power that they held and to the money that they were making. But talk to me a little bit about your experience with Meta and how they would choose to cover up or deny that they were harming kids.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Thank you, Senator. One example is that Facebook was targeting 13 to 17 year olds. It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure and they would take that information and share it with advertisers. One of the things about advertising is advertisers understand that when people don’t feel good about themselves, it’s often a good time to pitch a product. People are more likely to buy something. And so what the company was doing was letting these advertisers know that these 13 to 17 year olds were feeling depressed and saying now’s a really good time to serve them an advertisement. Or if a 13-year-old girl would delete a selfie, that’s a really good time to try and sell her a beauty product. Or if a 13-year-old girl is.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

So let me interrupt right there. If she deleted a selfie, then Facebook was in essence or meta Instagram, they were in essence tracking her activity online.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely. That is taken as a signal and then shared with advertisers.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

So they didn’t stay given specifically to their app, they traveled in the child’s phone? Absolutely, sir. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for that. I think it points up some of the harm that is there. One of the things I wanted you, we’ve talked about China and their launch of apps, Facebook’s apps in China. I wanted to see if you could elaborate on the type data that would be found on Facebook servers located in China and the broader implications of allowing the CCP to have access to that data.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, I mean we’ve just spoken in your last question about just one example of the amount of information that this company has. It is fathomable. It’s very, very hard to wrap your mind around the amount of data that this company has on each person who logs onto its service, private messages, but so much data and all of that would channel

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

For a pop server. So then it is not just limited the data. Facebook holes or meta holes is not just limited to the meta applications. Not at all. Senator. So basically meta has the ability to build what I call a virtual you of an individual where they go the transactions they have, the different apps that they rotate from one to another. Is that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely sound.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

Okay. Thank you. I’ve got one other question I want to come to you on. And we have heard not only from you but from others that Mark Zuckerberg would veto recommendations from his team when it came to improving practices that would protect children or would protect data. And he would do this because he would say it was too costly. And I just find that astounding. In the physical world, we have laws that protect an individual’s privacy. We have laws that protect children and protect them from being exposed to certain harms like alcohol, tobacco, sales, meeting predators, pedophiles. I wanted to know if you had witnessed that he or the other C-suite were actually vetoing recommendations that would’ve provided consumer protection and protection of children in the virtual space.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes, Senator. And as a mother of three children, that’s one of the more difficult aspects to reconcile with this company, that it is not a company that looks after users, particularly those 13 to 17, which they regard as a vulnerable yet very valuable ball.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

And then how long were you employed at Facebook and when was your last day?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I was employed from 2011 and my, I mean slightly complicated, but I finished in the end of 2017.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

2017. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Senator Durbin.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

Thanks for being here. That reference that I opened up with that you made in your book to a strategy of message strategy for meta and someone suggested tobacco as kind of the guideline that you might want to follow some dangerous product that was lessened in intensity to the public by misrepresentations. As I mentioned at the outset, I was part of the effort to bring them down. Didn’t realize I’d reached a tipping point with smoking on airplanes, but it turned out to be one and things change. You make a reference as well in the book that a lot of the executives at Facebook protected their own children from what might’ve been an exploitation. What you’ve described here, the algorithm that analyzes your activity on the board and says, well just deleted a selfie, good time for an ad. Somebody had put that together. So these executives at Facebook protected their own kids from that kind of exploitation. Correct.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, that was one of the things that shocked me when I moved to Silicon Valley is that it’s a place full of wooden Montessori toys and executives would always speak about how they have screen bands in the house or I would say, oh, has your teen used the new product we’re about to launch? And they’re like, my teenager’s not allowed on Facebook. I don’t have my teenager on Instagram. These executives they know. They know the harm that this product does. They don’t allow their own teenagers to use the products that Meta develops. I mean the hypocrisy is at every level.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

So I wanted to just tell you a follow up to that story. Eventually, the children of tobacco executives became my greatest fans and supporters and they would basically shame their parents by saying that the kids at school are saying this, or I just heard something or I read something, dad tell me that you aren’t part of that tobacco conspiracy to keep the truth from the American people. They became a force, a moral force in the conversation. It’d just be speculation. But I hope that that is the case here as well.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I hope you’re right, Senator.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

I read these things, so I want to ask you a question that is more generic, but I’m just curious as to the decision process at the highest levels, when there is a decision being made about what you’re going to turn over, what Facebook meta is going to turn over to the Chinese, all their demands that you said, the company denied to so many other countries, but for China they made an exception when the decision is being made about exposing American privacy material and data so that the Chinese would have access to it. Americans not knowing that the security questions that you raised, the AI information is given to the Chinese that makes them quote more competitive, but also means that they have sources of information that could compromise the security of the United States. I mean, when you consider each one of these, they kind of grow in gravity and magnitude. Are these decisions being made strictly by Zuckerberg himself or by boards or by open discussion? How much sensitivity was there to the fact that the decisions were historic in nature and maybe even criminal?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

It’s a really interesting question. I mean, you asked me in part about China to give you just one example at the governance level, which is what you’re asking me, the lead independent director on Meta’s board was also on the payroll for the China project

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

So that they had dual loyalty.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think the question around accountability and governance of this company and of tech companies more generally, there needs to be a lot more accountability. I don’t think the current governance structures are anywhere close to being sufficient.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

Tell me that there were people at that company that you worked with that didn’t sell out.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely. Absolutely. There were amazing, amazing people and there were people who were horrified and had very strong moral conscience. And there are many of these people who’ve been in touch who since these revelations have come out have said, I was in those meetings. I remember this, there were people who spoke up. There were people, I regret say that many of the people who spoke up are no longer at the company, but there are good people there and there are people who have moral beliefs and there certainly were. But that wasn’t happening at the top of the company. That wasn’t happening at the executive level. And what was striking was the absence of those types of discussions at the top of the company compared to what was happening with your average people who were working at the company.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

And you say Mr. Zuckerberg himself prides himself on being a loyal American.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think Mr. Zuckerberg would say he does.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

Yes.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

But I don’t want to speak for him.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

No, of course not. But I think the evidence that you’ve given us points in the other direction, lying to Congress may be in the realm of immortal sin depending on your faith conviction. But certainly selling out the security and privacy of the United States is about as low as they go. And when it comes to big tech, have you been in any conversations involving Section 230?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

No. Senator.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

All right. Well, that’s certainly a law that we’re taking a close look at here, which shields companies like this from personal civil liability. Many of us believe the committee has voted accordingly, that if they could be held accountable for their decisions in a court of law and find damages, money to money, that this would’ve more impact than some of the best speeches we could put together as members of Congress. So we’re going to work on that. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing, but I particularly thank you because you’ve referred to in your testimony what you call in the book “three pistols,” which I think is your reference to your three children. You’ve done a great thing for them and for kids all across the world. Thank you for testifying today.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Thank you, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Ms. Wynn-Williams. Let me ask you a little bit more about the censorship tools that you’ve been asked about today. You’ve testified about that were actually deployed in Hong Kong and Taiwan. And if we can, let’s just look again at the privacy team Email, not that one. That one. Yeah. And just so members of the press understand the committee’s in possession of this document, we have blacked out. As you can see, we’ve blacked out the names of individuals here, but in the documents we have those names, of course we’ll follow all appropriate legal procedures. But just so the press understands, the committee is committed to doing a full investigation. We do understand and know who the people are on this chain. We can see who they are and we can see the full course of the discussion. But I just want to emphasize something here. The update is they spoke with the China team. They flagged a potential course of potential complication, of course, of negotiations with the Chinese government. Let’s just stop there for a second. Someone pointed out to you that Mark Zuckerberg testified under oath that he didn’t know what the Chinese government’s terms would be to operate Facebook and China because they were banned unquote in China. So he just had no idea he was saying this as late as 2017, 2018. He just had no idea what the terms would be. That’s just categorically false, isn’t it?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Absolutely. Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And this email shows that it is false, correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

They, in fact, what this email shows is Facebook is in very regularly close contact with members of the Chinese government down to specifying how they want the censorship tools to work. They’re giving feedback on it back and forth and back and forth. And here they’ve agreed on a set of censorship tools to deploy in Hong Kong down to the fact that they say we’re going to have to actually re-TOS. Does that mean terms of service?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Correct.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So in other words, they’re going to have to push out to Hong Kong users a new click thing for them to click on, which they won’t of course really understand or know because it’s almost impossible to decipher. But in fact, what they’re doing is it’s allowing Facebook to stand up new censorship tools on behalf of the Chinese government. Is that correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Now here’s another interesting point. Back in 2012, the FTC here in this country, the FTC entered a consent decree with Facebook about privacy. Do you remember Ms. Wynn-Williams? This would’ve been early on in your time with the company, but do you remember roughly any of the terms of that FTC consent decree? Because they are relevant here.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I do, Senator. They were intended to prevent Meta from deceiving people about the extent to which they collect and share their data.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Yes. So the part of the order is, and let me just quote, Facebook shall quote, shall not misrepresent in any manner expressly or by implication the extent to which it maintains the privacy or security of covered information, which is user data. Now, Facebook is under a consent decree with the FTC on this basis, and yet they are deliberately misrepresenting across the world the security of user data. They are negotiating with the Chinese government to turn over user data, give grant the Chinese government access to Chinese user data, including the Hong Kong East, including Taiwan, and yet they’re representing to American government officials. No, no, no. We don’t do that. We don’t do that. In fact, they testified under oath. We don’t make user data available. All of that was just lies. Is that fair to say, Ms. Win Williams

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, many, many decisions had been made and they were all premised on the basis that Meta would hand over Chinese user data to the Chinese Communist Party.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So in addition to lying to Congress on what seems like a fairly regular basis, lying about suppressing dissidents, lying about setting up censorship tools, they’ve also arguably violated FTC consent decrees. And we have the documentation. This isn’t just Ms. Wynn-Williams’ opinion, this isn’t just her recollection. We have the documentation with the Facebook employees who I might add are high level executive level employees who are planning this and doing this. It’s really, it’s quite extraordinary. This was a pattern of operations at Facebook over and over and over. We’ll come back to that Ms. Wynn-Williams. But if you’re ready, Senator Klobuchar, I’ll turn it over to you.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

Thank you. Thank you very much. And I just again appreciate that you have come forward. In your book, you wrote that Facebook remade American news media by inserting Facebook at the center of it, driving down ad rates for newspapers and distributing their stories using their content to boost time spent on Facebook. Senator Kennedy and I as a side have a bill to push negotiations for the price of content, which I think is really important. But could you explain how Meta uses news content to boost time spent on Facebook and how that allows Facebook to sell more advertising without paying publishers their fair share?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I mean, the key thing that Meta is obsessed with is engagement. It’s keeping people’s attention on the services that Meta owns for as long as possible using whatever tools it can. So definitely the work of publishers and the work of many dedicated journalists. And also increasingly they’re utilizing AI to keep engagement, often AI based on the work of journalists and authors.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

Exactly. And when discussing ways to promote a healthy news market, you quoted Mr. Zuckerberg as saying quote, you’re compromising with the dying industry rather than dominating it. Crushing it. What do you see with your experience as a consequence of Facebook is allowed to dominate and crush an independent news media?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think every citizen has seen the consequences of these actions, and I think we’re all the poorer for it.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

Thank you. When discussing the role that political ads play in Facebook’s business, you observed that pedaling outrage and stretching the truth were just part of the game, and that outrage is a lucrative business for Facebook. I care about this a lot. Just being in this business of politics and how we know how negativity is awarded online, not just Facebook in all of the algorithms in these companies, and it’s actually completely changed the ecosystem that we work in. Can you elaborate more on how stoking political outrage is profitable for Facebook and ramifications for democracy?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think we’re all living with the consequences of this every day. As I said before, what this company wants is to dominate as much time and attention as it can of not just in this country, as many billions as they can. And what they’ve learned is that outrage is a really good way to do that. But whatever it takes, whatever it takes to have people glued to these services in their power, in their thrall, they’ll do it.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

But the major focus of this hearing, of course, on China. And I have to say that I found that whole piece of this ironic because when Senator Grassley and I were trying to pass our bill about the self preferencing, which was also, of course, got the ire of Google and Amazon, these other companies, I remember you remember that day. Well, when we had the hearing center, Holly, the markup on this bill, well, one of the things that kept being thrown in my face and in those of others that work on this is China, you’re actually going to destroy us, and then China will dominate. And at one point another senator actually said that that was what national security officials said. And anticipating that I’d actually gone around to the then head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, I’d called them all or seen them at things.

And while they weren’t getting in the business of endorsing, they said no. This idea of doing something about putting consumer protections in and saying you can’t put your own product all the time at the top of the search engine. That did not hurt our national security vis-a-vis China. But that is what they claim. And that’s what’s so interesting about your experience and your testimony, and your book actually reveals the extent to which Facebook was willing to put growth over the US national interest to gain favor with the Chinese Communist Party. As you pointed out in your testimony today, and in fact, and I know Senator Grassley asked you about this, you wrote Meta started briefing the Communist Party as early as 2015. You talked about this today, the explicit goal being to help China outcompete American companies. Could you elaborate on that?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I think to pick up on your point, Senator Meta is very quick to say, don’t do anything that can hurt us because you’ll let China win. You’ll let China win on ai, you’ll let China win and gain the technological advantage. And the whole time, the company that’s done the most to help China gain a technological advantage is meta.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

So do you believe Facebook is an honest broker? This is called a softball. When it claims competition reforms would harm the US ability to compete with China, because I’m telling you, we hear this all the time. So every time we try to bring up any of these bills,

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

I hope what we’ve discussed today, Senator, helps you push back very firmly and gives you something to create some real accountability.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

And then finally, Senator Cruz and I have mentioned we have this bill, take it down that’s passed the Senate. And just your view that if Meta puts its considerable engineering expertise toward the problem of removing non-consensual intimate images that are the power to ruin lives or even the selling of Fentanyl or some of these other things, do you think they could do it?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, they’ve shown to the Chinese Communist Party that when they’re motivated to get to remove something, they can be absolutely expert in it very fast.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

Alright, thank you very much.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Thank you, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Senator Blumenthal.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I would be interested in knowing Ms. Williams when Meta first tried to silence you, when they first contacted you, what was said to you? And I assume it was in the nature of a threat and a warning of some kind.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yes. Senator. I have had some very, I’m trying to find the right word, aggressive threats from this company. And the last four weeks have been very difficult.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Apart from the threats in a judicial setting. Have there been others?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

There have been a number of things. Senator? Yes. Yeah.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Would you prefer to tell us about that in private?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

No, it is. Okay. I can. Sorry, it’s hard, but I can talk about it. Yeah. Well, so Meta has said, so even the choice to come to speak to Congress was incredibly difficult. Maybe it’s helpful if I read what they told me.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Please do.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

And they said the purpose of, sorry. They said if the respondent with me, if I were permitted to communicate with legislators, that’s you. Such actions would create an exception to non-disparagement that it would eat the rule. In such circumstances, nothing would limit or prevent those legislators or their aids from parroting to the public. Any disparaging statements. And I just want to pause here because a disparaging statement is a true statement, so it’s telling you the truth. Respondent is barred from disclosing. So they were very clear that even coming to speak to you about the truth and about the concerns of national security and protecting our children and sharing these truths with you, that would have not only $50,000 for each truthful statement, actual damages for breach of confidentiality, actual and punitive damages for fraud and other claims.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

So lemme just be clear in effect, they are warning you against what we might say publicly based on your comments to us. Even though they might not hold you or bar you from coming here,

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They have said that as a potential consequence, that is the order they have secured.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

That, in effect, you’d be held responsible for what we might say as a result of your truthful testimony.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Not just you, senators, something your aid might say. I mean they frame it as something your A might parrot.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

In other words, what these folks in back of us might say as well as what we might say,

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Even though it’s factual and true.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Even though it’s factually true in effect. I mean now that you mention it, it creates pressure on us not to tell the truth to the American public is the way I view it. It’s in a sense threatening you and thereby putting pressure on us. We could have to worry about harming you as a result.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Please don’t worry about harming me.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And when did they first contact you? I guess when they became aware of your book or,

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Well, that’s right. They put out public statements when they first became aware of the book. But they also effectively tried to, I mean, I dunno, very, I am learning very fast about the system of arbitration, which seems incredibly unjust. But they sought to game that they said that they had notified me of an arbitration. They have my email on file. They have so many ways to contact me. I worked with ’em for a long time. Most of the senior executives have emailed me, but they chose not to notify me through that email address. So I was not a…

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

They issued a public statement. Correct. So they first went public and then contacted you?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Well, they didn’t contact me, yes. Send.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And what did they do to start the arbitration process?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They started it without me. They secured the order without me.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Without any representation.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct, because I was not aware of it. They’d sent it to an email address from 2007.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And my understanding is that you were regularly communicating with Meta, but they still used a defunct email address to serve the notice of the emergency arbitration. You were provided no notice of the proceeding, the appointment of an emergency arbitrator without your legal team knowing or having opportunity to object. And the initial hearing took place without anybody from your legal team participating.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Yeah, I didn’t know about it, so I couldn’t participate in it.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

And once they had an emergency gag order in hand, they knew how to reach you. Correct.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, I was honestly, I was trying to get my toddler to eat some oatmeal and the door went, the doorbell went, and it’s a little embarrassing, but it was just after the book had published. So I thought it might’ve been someone delivering flowers. No, it was a gag order.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

So Meta’s flowers were a gag order, and they knew where you were. They had no trouble reaching with the emergency gag order. They didn’t bother letting you know about the arbitration process or anything before they got what they wanted.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

They obviously knew where my home was the entire time.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that this experience is kind of a textbook example of the kind of problems that we hear from our constituents relating to forced arbitration. I happen to be the lead sponsor in the Senate of the Forced Arbitration and Justice Repeal Act, known as the Fair Act, which would end these kinds of abusive clauses that enabled them to do what they did with you, Ms. Wynn-Williams. And just so we’re absolutely clear, they’re trying to force you to pay them this $50,000 in liquidated damages for each so-called disparaging comment, true comment, which they regard as unfavorable to them even when you tell the truth about their misconduct, correct?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct. Senator.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Thank you. Senator, before we let you go, Ms. Williams, just one other line of questions if I could. Just one other subject. You actually touched on it with Senator Blackburn. She was talking to you about the kind of research that Facebook has done and the kind of advertising that they’re willing to sell. And to me, what’s so interesting about this is we’ve seen, frankly, the moral bankruptcy of this company and its leadership when it comes to China. And we’ve seen them be willing to lie to Congress, lie to the American public. We’ve got the documents in black and white. We’ve seen them be willing to give away American user data, but they were also trying to find out a way to make a buck on Americans, teenagers, children in times of distress right here in the United States. And I just want to give you an opportunity to comment on this.

Here’s an internal Facebook chat where a policy, a Facebook policy director asks, is it really accurate that Facebook is doing it research into young mothers and their emotional state? Is it your understanding if there’s other research related to young mother’s answer? Yes. I looked at one list of research topics and saw one about young mothers and their emotional state coming down. The person says, I’m wondering about asking my apparently morally bankrupt colleagues if they are aware of any more. This is about Facebook’s program to target ads to people when they are in emotional distress. Is that right? Is that what we’re seeing here?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s correct, Senator.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

And that included teenage girls as you were discussing with Senator Blackburn, those who had maybe recently deleted a selfie, maybe not feeling very good about themselves and Facebook said, oh, oh, fantastic opportunity. We could sell this to advertisers. It apparently also included young mothers who are in moments of distress. I mean, who knows what that might include everything from the spilled oatmeal you were trying to put into your toddler’s mouth. I have three children as I understand, or who knows what, much, much worse things. So Facebook is constantly looking for opportunities to sell to advertisers to make a buck even on their own users. And they’re doing it by tracking their users all over the place, tracking their emotional statement. Have I got that accurate?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

You’ve got that accurate. And beyond that, it’s things like things that often do concern teen girls, like body confidence. That’s something else that they use to target weight loss or other things on children. Really 13 to 17-year-olds.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

So to your knowledge, did Facebook after this email exchange where another user says, I think it’s a slippery slope here, and then there’s the admission, there is a level of behavioral targeting. I mean, just to be clear, I want everybody to see this. There is a level of behavioral targeting. I mean, these are Facebook executives. Again, this is a policy director in this chat acknowledging that this is what Facebook is doing. Did it stop? Did Facebook stop doing this?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Not to my knowledge, sir.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Yeah, in fact, we know they didn’t because other whistleblowers came forward to show that at Instagram owned by Facebook, there was explicit targeting that goes on. There was explicit knowledge that the Instagram product was causing in some cases severe emotional distress, particularly to young girls. Facebook kept right on doing it anyway. Is that just because it made ’em a bunch of money?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Internet as a mother of three children? It’s very hard to say this, but yes. One of the discussions I had with one of the business leaders was like, we just don’t need to do this as a company. Met is now a trillion-dollar company. It is not short of money. It doesn’t need to do this. And what he explained to me is we’ve got the most valuable segment of the population. Advertisers really want to reach 13 to 17 year olds and we have them. We should be trumpeting it from the rooftops.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

It’s really just extraordinary. I think what we’ve seen here is the evidence that you presented, the evidence that we have in black and white as a company and leadership that is willing to do anything, anything. Work with America’s chief competitor, work with our chief adversary, sell out other American businesses, sell out American user data, lie to Congress, lie to the public, anything in order to amass more power and make a buck. Can I just ask you Mark Zuckerberg very well. You spent a lot of time with him. He’s recently tried a reinvention in which he is now a great advocate of free speech after being an advocate of censorship in China and in this country for years after suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story after talking, after working hand in glove with the Biden administration to suppress content on COD to suppress content, on masks, to suppress content on election, questions on vaccines, all of that. Now that’s all wiped away. Now he’s on Joe Rogan and says that he is Mr. Free Speech. He’s Mr. MAGA. He is a whole new man and his company, they’re a whole new company. Do you buy this latest reinvention of Mark Zuckerberg?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, there are two things. If he’s such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me? And the other thing is that this is a man who wears many different costumes. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child. He was learning Mandarin. He was censoring to his heart’s content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or whatever free speech. We don’t know what the next costume’s going to be, but it’ll be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

If he were here, is there anything you’d like to say to him?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

Senator, I have a lot of questions for Mark Zuckerberg, but he has proven time and time again that you cannot believe his answers. He’s lied to members of Congress, he’s lied to employees, and he’s lied to Americans. And that’s why I’m asking this committee to hold him accountable.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

Well, we’re going to do that. And I just have to say, I don’t trust his latest reinvention at all. He sat where you have sat in front of this committee multiple times in my short time in the Senate. Every time it’s a different answer, every time it’s a different facade, but every time the one consistent through line is every time it’s something misleading, every time it’s something other than the truth. Every time it’s about Mark Zuckerberg, not the American people. It’s about Mark Zuckerberg, not what’s good for this country, not what’s good for his users, not what is the truth. And I for one very tired of it.

So I have a message to Mark Zuckerberg as well, which is that it’s time for you to tell the truth. You should come to this committee and take an oath and sit where Ms. Wynn-Williams is sitting now and answer this evidence. Stop trying to silence her. Stop trying to gag her. Stop trying to hide behind your lawyers and millions and dollars in legal fees you’re trying to impose on her. Stop threatening other whistleblowers. Come to this committee. Take the oath. Sit there, let us question you and give the American people the truth. We will be waiting for you. Senator, anything further?

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Well said, Mr. Chairman, I associate myself with your remarks and what I would say to him is, stop silencing Ms. Wynn-Williams for starters, and I go along with you that he ought to come here and tell the truth. I just want to clarify that the statement on speaking to Congress was from the arbitrator. Is that right?

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

The arbitrator that Meta sought.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

The arbitrator, that Meta obtained and the gag order is still in effect.

Sarah Wynn-Williams:

That’s right. Senator, this may be the last time I’m allowed to speak.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):

Well, it’s not going to be the last time you’re allowed to speak if we have anything to do with it. What I would say to Mark Zuckerberg is, stop gagging Ms. Wynn-Williams. Let her speak the truth. And you come here and tell us your version of the truth if you have the guts to do it. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

I can promise you, Ms. Wynn-Williams, that this will not be the end. This is just the beginning. We are going to get the truth. And you have done a great service to the American people by telling the truth here today. Thank you for being willing to do it. With that, this committee is adjourned.

Source:  Tech Policy Press