Whistleblower: Facebook Offered China Censorship Controls

A 2024 whistleblower complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly exposes a Facebook censorship plan to help the company now known as Meta to enter the Chinese market, offering the country say over content.

Also, in a "mutual interests" appeal to a senior Chinese regulatory official, founder Mark Zuckerberg "agreed to crack down on the account of a high-profile Chinese dissident living in the United States," The Washington Post reported from Sarah Wynn-Williams' complaint filed last April.

In response to Newsmax's report on the allegations, a Meta spokesman noted the company long decided against complying to China's demands.

"This is all pushed by an employee terminated eight years ago for poor performance," a Meta spokesperson wrote in a statement to Newsmax, noting the Post declined to include the full statement in its report. "We do not operate our services in China today. It is no secret we were once interested in doing so as part of Facebook's effort to connect the world.

"This was widely reported beginning a decade ago. We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019."

China has long been under fire for censorship in its country, blocking Western social media companies, engaging in forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft in big tech.

"In countries with authoritarian leanings like China, stringent government controls over data flows are twisted into tools of censorship, surveillance, and repression," Electronic Frontier Foundation's Katitza Rodriguez told the Post.

"Once data is stored locally, companies are pressured to comply with Beijing's demands or risk losing access to Chinese consumers."

It is not unlike the COVID-era censorship between government operatives and Big Tech and social media as exposed during the Biden administration by Elon Musk's Twitter Files and investigated by House Republicans.

Wynn-Williams' 78-page complaint, reviewed by the Post, alleges Facebook developed a censorship system to appease China for its desire to enter their market, including a "chief editor" who would modulate content undesired by China and even shut down the whole platform in the country during "social unrest."

When questioned by investors and U.S. regulators, Facebook executives "stonewalled and provided non-responsive or misleading information," Wynn-Williams alleges in the complaint.

Wynn-Williams was fired from Facebook in the first year of the Trump administration in 2017 and is releasing the book "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism" on Tuesday exposing the company's dealings.

"One of the top priorities for President Trump is the West winning this critical [AI] race and yet for many years Meta has been working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, briefing them on the latest technological developments and lying about it," Wynn-Williams told the Post.

"People deserve to know the truth."

Meta's response to the reveal of the complaint is it is all old news and "no secret" Facebook wanted to work with China to gain access to their country under their laws.

"This was widely reported beginning a decade ago," Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the Post. "We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019."

The Meta spokesperson shared Zuckerberg's Georgetown speech remarks to Newsmax.

"It's one of the reasons we don't operate Facebook, Instagram, or our other services in China," Zuckerberg said in the except highlighted Sunday by Meta. "I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world and I thought we might help create a more open society.

"I worked hard to make this happen. But we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in. And now we have more freedom to speak out and stand up for the values we believe in and fight for free expression around the world."

The move to gain access to China begun in 2014 and was called "Project Aldrin," homage to astronaut Buzz Aldrin's being the first to land a manned spacecraft on the moon, the Post reported from the complaint.

"In exchange for the ability to establish operations in China, FB will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese users' data — including Hongkongese users' data,” a privacy policy staffer wrote in an email detailed in the complaint.

In appealing to China to try to gain entry, Facebook took down the page of wealthy Chinese businessman and critic Guo Wengui at the behest of China's regulator Zhao Zeliang, according to the complaint.

"If there is nothing we can do [about Wengui's account], there will be an impact on our cooperation," a Facebook official wrote in an internal note revealed in the complaint, according to the Post.