Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams testifies in US Senate Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook sharing data with China, targets ads at teen

Former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams has claimed that the big tech firm shared users’ data with China detailing America’s achievements in artificial intelligence (AI). Williams also claimed that the company’s move was made to expand its business there. She had previously as well claimed Meta’s closeness with China regarding data usage. She was previously Meta’s (Formerly Facebook) Director of Global Public Policy who alleged that the company was misleading its employees, shareholders, Congress, and the general US public in the context of its communication with the Chinese Communist Party, and warned of such actions leading to breach in the nation’s security.  

Sara Wynn-Williams's testimony in US Senate

When asked if Facebook was willing to share user data with China in the US Senate, she testified that it was indeed doing so. US Senator Josh Hawley said that “Facebook was desperately trying to prevent this witness from telling what she knows.” Calling Facebook, “one of the world’s most powerful companies”, Hawley said that “it stopped at nothing to prevent this testimony” “and tried to go on war” to prevent this.  

The Senator also told the Senate that the top brass of the company including Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg not only “prevented her from telling their engagement with China but also sued her and sought a gag order against her and begged courts to get her book off shelves and stopped from being printed even.” 

Sarah said, “one of the challenges in servicing a market as big as China was the internet infrastructure that would underpin that.” She further said that the service would be slow so the company came up with ‘pop service’ is a technical data centre that brings the data closer to the end user. She further explained that this service had one major issue which was, as it was not possible to segregate data, America’s from the Chinese, all of that data would be available to China.  

The Senate therefore concluded that Facebook, aka, Meta was “willingly compromising US users’ data with China, all for profit.” 

Sarah'a allegations against Mark Zuckerberg

Sarah Wynn also told US Senators that Meta was continuously targeting teens with specified ads based on their emotional state. 

Sarah Wynn-Williams previously filed a 78-page complaint with the SEC, accusing Meta of developing a censorship system for China back in 2015 and willing to share its dataw with the communist party.  

In her book “Careless People,” she called CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg as “careless” and claimed that the CEO was willing to share user data with China and the latter harassed her. She was the executive in Meta from 2011 to 2017, the year in which she was asked to leave.