The BBC was informed by a former senior Facebook official that the social media behemoth collaborated “hand in glove” with the Chinese government on possible means of enabling Beijing to regulate and filter information in China.
Former global public policy director Sarah Wynn-Williams claims that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, contemplated agreeing to conceal viral posts until Chinese authorities could review them in exchange for access to the country’s hundreds of millions of users.
In addition to claiming that Meta misled investors, Ms. Williams, the author of a new book, has also lodged a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US market watchdog. The BBC has looked into the grievance.
According to Facebook’s parent company Meta, Ms. Wynn-Williams was fired “for poor performance” in 2017.
It goes on to say that it is “no secret we were once interested” in running services in China. “We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we’d explored.”
Mark Zuckerberg stated in 2019 that “we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they [China] never let us in.” Meta led us to this statement.
According to Ms. Wynn-Williams, Facebook also employed algorithms to identify vulnerable moments in early teens as part of study targeted at advertisers.
She joined Facebook in 2011 as a former diplomat from New Zealand and claims to have had “a front row seat” to the company’s growth.
She now wishes to demonstrate a few of the “decision-making and moral compromises” that she claims occurred during her time there. She goes on to say that “many of the people I worked with… are going to be central” to the introduction of AI, making it a crucial moment.
Ms. Wynn-Williams describes her experiences working on Facebook’s executive team in her memoir, Careless People.
She claims that Mr. Zuckerberg enjoyed karaoke, did not rise before noon, and disliked losing board games like Risk. “I was unaware that you were meant to give him the victory. She admitted to us, “I was a little naive.”
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But according to Ms. Wynn-Williams, her claims on the business’s tight ties to China shed light on Facebook’s choices at the time.
The Eyevine Mark Zuckerberg is one of two individuals playing chess. A foot stool with a blue design sits atop the chess board. Mark Zuckerberg’s opponent is black, and he is using white pieces. Mr. Zuckerberg is grinning while gripping his right hand.The Eyevine
Sarah Wynn-Williams claims that although Mark Zuckerberg enjoys playing board games, he detests losing.
According to Ms. Wynn-Williams, “China is Mark Zuckerberg’s white whale,” referring to an objective that he relentlessly pursued.
The nation has the largest social media market in the world, but Facebook and other websites like X and YouTube are still restricted there.
“It’s the one piece on the board game that he hasn’t conquered,” she continues.
According to Ms. Wynn-Williams, Facebook contemplated giving it future access to user data belonging to Chinese nationals in the middle of the 2010s as part of its discussions with the Chinese government.
“He was developing a censorship tool in close collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party. really trying to create the opposite of many of the tenets that Facebook is founded on,” she told the BBC.
Governments often requested explanations of how certain features of Facebook’s software operated, but were informed that the information was proprietary, according to Ms. Wynn-Williams.
“But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back,” she continues.
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“Engineers were called in. Every detail was explained to them, and Facebook made sure the Chinese authorities had the necessary skills to test Facebook’s censoring version of the goods they were developing in addition to learning about them.”
Such statements concerning China had been “widely reported” at the time, Meta told the BBC.
Ms. Wynn-Williams also claims in her SEC lawsuit that various Meta officials, including Mr. Zuckerberg, made “misleading statements… in response to Congressional inquiries” regarding China.
Facebook was “not in a position to know exactly how the [Chinese] government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content,” according to one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s 2018 congressional responses.
Mr. Zuckerberg provided truthful testimony, Meta said the BBC, adding that it does not have services in China.
When Mark Zuckerberg visited China in 2016, he ran through Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
According to Ms. Wynn-Williams, the majority of Facebook executives did not permit their own children to use the social media platform. “They were banned from screens. They would not let them to utilize the merchandise, for sure.
However, she claims that reports from 2017 that the business had been classifying and targeting vulnerable teenagers using algorithms were accurate.
“The algorithm could infer that they were feeling worthless or unhappy,” she claims.
She asserts that the firm, which also controls WhatsApp and Instagram, could detect when a teenage girl removed a selfie from its platforms and then alert a cosmetics company that it would be a good time to target the youngster with an advertisement.
Despite knowing it was pointless, Ms. Wynn-Williams claims she “felt sick” at the idea and attempted to resist.
“The business side believes that this is precisely what we ought to be doing,” they stated. We can reach young people, a crucial advertising demographic, with this fantastic offering.”
This is untrue, Meta told the BBC, adding that it has never provided tools to target individuals based on their emotional state and that its earlier research was done to better understand how people express themselves on Facebook rather than to target advertisements.
Ms. Wyn-Williams believes that Meta “influences so much of our day-to-day life” and that it should change.
According to Ms. Wynn-Williams, the business hasn’t gone far enough in addressing the problem of youth safety on social media.
“This business is among the most valued in the world. They might spend money on this, give it top priority, and take further action to address it.”
Facebook claimed to be open and honest about ad targeting and to have released updates on how it is developing teen-friendly ad experiences.
Additionally, it claimed to have created “Teen Accounts” with built-in safeguards for tens of millions of youth. Additionally, it stated that parents now have more control over how their teenagers use the program.
The 45-year-old was fired for “toxic behavior” after making “misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment,” according to Meta, in addition to her low performance.
However, Ms. Wynn-Williams informed the BBC that she was fired after complaining to Joel Kaplan, her boss and current chief global relations officer at Meta, about offensive remarks he made.
Meta informed us that she was not a whistleblower and that “anti-Facebook activists” had paid her.
“Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books,” added the statement.
Meta told the BBC that it has filed a lawsuit in the US to “halt the further distribution of defamatory and untrue information” in reference to Ms. Wynn-Williams’ book.
“Meta has made a number of false and inconsistent statements about Sarah since the news of her memoir broke… while Meta’s statements are trying to mislead the public, the book speaks for itself,” spat Ms. Wynn-Williams’ attorney in response.
We questioned her about why she was finally speaking up. Since Meta “influences so much of our day-to-day life” and we must make sure “we get the future we deserve,” she stated that she wants to see it alter.
“At this time, political and tech leaders are uniting, and as they do so, there will be significant repercussions for everyone.
“I think it’s really important to understand that and to understand you look at all these engineers who are influencing the highest level of government.”
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