‘Meta Worked on Behalf of China’: Whistleblower’s Allegations

Azdhanon 6 minute read
6 minute read

Meta’s whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams claims that Facebook (now Meta) had operations in China from 2014 without the knowledge of the US government or the general public. “They did these things in secret to win favor with Beijing and build an $18 billion business in China,” Wynn-Williams testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wynn-Williams worked with Meta as the Director of Global Policy from 2011 to 2017. She worked closely with top-level executives, including founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, reminded Senator Josh Hawley, chairman of the committee established to investigate Meta’s involvement with the Chinese government.

“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,” said Mark Zuckerberg in another congressional hearing in 2018.

So how could a company banned in China since 2009, as Zuckerberg himself stated, operate and build an $18 billion business there, as claimed by Wynn-Williams?

She also alleged that Meta uses predatory practices to spy on “young children and young mothers” who are “emotionally vulnerable,” targeting them with ads. However, in the two-hour-long exchange with Congress, the focus was more on the geopolitical implications of Meta’s actions than on the alleged privacy concerns.

‘Gag Order’

“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,” said Senator Josh Hawley in his opening remarks.

He questioned the intent of Meta to ‘threaten’ Wynn-Williams from not only appearing at the congressional hearing but also to prevent her from uttering the word ‘Meta.’

“They’ve threatened her with $50,000 in punitive damages each time she publicly mentions Facebook — even if her statements are true, and even as we speak,” he added.

“So I thought it might’ve been someone delivering flowers. No, it was a gag order,” recalled Wynn-Williams, referring to the incident right after her book Careless People — exposing Meta’s activities in China — was published.

Dismissing Zuckerberg’s self-portrayal as a free speech advocate, she asked, “If he’s such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me?” Hawley echoed the sentiment: “Why is Facebook so desperate to prevent Facebook from telling what she knows? What is it that they are so afraid of?”

‘For Profits’

“We are absolutely talking about profit,” said Wynn-Williams, referring to Meta’s alleged $18.3 billion business in China.

“Facebook has an $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,” she added. 

In 2014, Meta acquired Oculus VR, Inc. Coincidentally, that is also the year Wynn-Williams alleges Meta’s dealings with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began.

“Xiaomi and Oculus have had a relationship for a while,” said Hugo Barra, the then CEO of Oculus and a former Xiaomi executive who helped expand the company’s overseas business.

“Meta started briefing the Chinese Communist Party as early as 2015. These briefings focused on critical emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, with the explicit goal of helping China outcompete American companies,” she claimed.

‘Serve Teens and Women to Advertisers’


“They don’t allow their own teenagers to use the products that Meta develops,” claimed Wynn-Williams, referring to the alleged algorithmic exploitation of vulnerable teens and women.
She later recounted a discussion she had with a business leader: “We’ve got the most valuable segment of the population. Advertisers really want to reach 13- to 17-year-olds, and we have them,” She recalled him saying about the reasons for targeting the teens.

A Facebook policy director — whose name was redacted to protect their identity, questioned whether Facebook was conducting research on young mothers and their emotional states. In the disclosed screenshots of an internal chat, a team member confirmed having seen a list of research topics, including one focused on young mothers and their emotional states. The director then contemplated asking their colleagues, whom they implied were morally bankrupt, whether they were aware of any further research on the subject.

‘Zukerberg’s Travel to China’

“He traveled to China more than any other country,” said Sarah Williams, referring to Zuckerberg’s personal involvement in the project. “He learned Mandarin. He had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child.”

In 2016, Zuckerberg had a public talk in Beijing with Alibaba’s Jack Ma. His interest to make business in China was made public. Around the same time, he posted a photo of himself running at Tiananmen Square, infamous for the 1989 protests and alleged massacre.

‘Censorships based on Virality’

Wynn-Williams repeated her allegation that Zuckerberg was working to censor content on behalf of China in her exchange with the Congress. 

She alleged that Meta worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese Communist Party to “construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored their critics.”

“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,” she said, explaining how censorship operated, particularly in Hong Kong which was seeing a series of pro-democracy protests against China’s intrusion. 

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When asked about the geographical reach of the “Chief Editors” beyond mainland China, she said, “They planned to cover Hong Kong and Taiwan.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal called the alleged censorship program’s “Chief Editor” role “Orwellian.”

By 2018, she claimed that Facebook had already built these censorship and surveillance tools. “Chinese Communist Party officials tested the censorship tool and would give feedback — saying things like, this needs to change, or we need confidence that you can capture images and filter images,” she added.

‘Pressure from China’

Senator Hawley brought up a 2017 incident when Facebook blocked the profile of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese dissident who was allegedly revealing the ‘secrets of corruption among top family members of CCP.’

When asked if the blocking of Guo Wengui was truly a “technical glitch” as Facebook claimed, Wynn-Williams responded with an emphatic “no.”

Hawley then read from internal documents, allegedly from a meeting with Mr. Chou, “a communist Chinese party member, a government official in the US.” The notes indicated pressure on Facebook from the CCP, stating: “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.” To which Wynn-Williams said, “That’s accurate.”

‘Helping China Dream’

“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,” said Wynn-Williams.

Meta’s internal documents allegedly described their sales pitch for why China should allow them in the market by quote “help China increase global influence and promote the China Dream.”

She also said Meta tried to convince China that “there is no need to rely on firms like Cisco and IBM.” She added, “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.”

“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?” she remarked.

However, this part of her claim was not backed by direct evidence from her time at Meta, but rather an interpretation of reported developments.

‘Meta’s Llama Used for Chinese Military’

When asked if Meta is providing the Chinese government with access to artificial intelligence, she replied, “It’s been well reported that Chinese researchers have used the Llama model both for AI weapons and also that Llama is part of what powers DeepSeek.”

However, the framing of her answers raises a few legit suspicions. she neither confirmed nor denied active participation by Meta in China’s military AI operations. She merely stated that it had been “reported” — without citing anything from her time at Meta.

Her book, Careless People, was launched on 11th March 2025. DeepSeek’s first model was launched in 2023. But, her book doesn’t even mention the words DeepSeek, Llama. It is important to note that Llama is open source — China is well within its rights to use it.

‘This is the Begining’

At the end of the hearing, Senator Hawley said, “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.”

Sarah Wynn-Williams’s claims against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are significant and call for a thorough investigation. The allegations are serious enough to warrant the attention they are receiving. However, the statements exchanged at the congressional hearing remain allegations — they must be substantiated with evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

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