‘Betray American values’: Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta accused of undermining US national security, supporting China
A former Meta executive turned whistleblower told US Congress that the company put American interests at risk while getting close to China, a claim Meta has denied.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, is sworn in before testifying during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
Sarah Wynn-Williams, who was Meta’s director of global public policy until 2017, said at a Senate hearing that company leaders undermined US national security and offered censorship tools to China.
“I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values. They did these things in secret to win favour with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China,” Wynn said to senators,” Sarah Wynn-Williams Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism
She also alleged that Meta, earlier known as Facebook, supported China in its progress in the artificial intelligence race.
“Meta started briefing the Chinese Communist Party as early as 2015,” said Wynn-Williams, who recently published a memoir titled Careless People about her experience at Facebook.
“These briefings focused on critical emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. The explicit goal being to help China outcompete American companies.”
“These briefings took place at ‘every level’ of the company, including with its leadership,” Wynn-Williams said.
In her testimony, Wynn-Williams suggested that there’s a “straight line” to draw from these briefings to China’s current use of Meta’s AI tools to build out its military capabilities.
Wynn-Williams says she faced threats from Meta
Wynn-Williams added that she has faced threats and intimidation from Meta following the release of her memoir, Careless People. The book quickly became a bestseller after Meta managed to secure an emergency arbitrator’s order preventing her from making further disparaging comments about the company.
Her book has attracted the attention of lawmakers, including Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
“Did you sense that he had any red line?” Blumenthal asked Wynn-Williams of Zuckerberg’s efforts to win the favour of the Chinese Communist Party. “I did not,” Wynn-Williams said.
On Tuesday, after NBC News reported Wynn-Williams’s prepared remarks, a Meta spokesperson called her claims “false and out of touch with reality.”
Meta’s Andy Stone said Zuckerberg had talked about the company’s interest in China in the past, and this was widely known. However, he stressed, “We do not operate our services in China today.”
With Bloomberg inputs
