The Inside Story of Facebook's Secret China Dealings

A former top executive at Facebook has spilled the beans about the company's sneaky dealings with China. Sarah Wynn-Williams, who used to be in charge of global public policy at Facebook, now Meta, has some serious accusations. She claims that Meta has been playing fast and loose with U. S. national security to make a quick buck in China. Wynn-Williams dropped this bombshell during a Senate hearing. She accused Meta of secretly helping China get ahead in the AI race. She even said that Meta executives were lying to everyone—employees, investors, Congress, and the American public—about their dealings with the Chinese Communist Party. This is a big deal, considering how important AI is for national security. Wynn-Williams' book, "Careless People, " which dives deep into her time at Meta, has been a hit. It sold 60, 000 copies in just one week and made it to the top 10 on Amazon's best-seller list. But Meta isn't happy about it. They've been trying to discredit her and shut her up. Senator Richard Blumenthal even called out Meta's "campaign of threats and intimidation" during the hearing. So, what exactly did Meta do? Wynn-Williams says that Meta executives were bending over backward to please Beijing. They even deleted the Facebook account of a big-time Chinese dissident living in the U. S. This dissident was Guo Wengui, a billionaire. Meta claimed they deleted his account because it violated their rules, but Wynn-Williams isn't buying it. Meta also ignored warnings about a plan to build a direct connection between the U. S. and China. This "pipeline" could have given China easy access to U. S. user data. Luckily, lawmakers stepped in and stopped it. But Wynn-Williams thinks Meta would have gone through with it if given the chance. Meta, of course, denies all of this. They say Wynn-Williams' claims are false and that they never operated in China. But Wynn-Williams paints a different picture. She describes Mark Zuckerberg as a chameleon, changing his tune to fit whatever situation he's in. From trying to impress the president of China to pushing for free speech, Zuckerberg seems to wear many hats. All of this is happening just as Meta is facing a massive antitrust trial. The Federal Trade Commission is going after Meta, and it could force the company to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. It's a tough time for Meta, and Wynn-Williams' revelations aren't making it any easier.