On April 9, 2025, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing to examine troubling claims about Meta (formerly Facebook) and its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  Whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, Meta’s former director of global public policy from 2011 to 2017, presented detailed testimony describing Meta’s alleged covert dealings with the high-level CCP officials that threatened America’s national security.

Wynn-Williams alleged that Meta and its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, misled U.S. lawmakers and implemented predatory practices targeting young users for profit.  A Meta spokesperson disputed Wynn-Williams’s testimony, telling Fox News Digital that it was “divorced from reality and riddled with false claims.”

Chairman of the committee Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) described her as “no ordinary whistleblower,” emphasizing her senior role.

“She wasn’t just some mid-level functionary,” Hawley commented during his questioning. “She worked closely with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. She arranged their meetings with world leaders across the globe. She heard their plans for China.”

Wynn-Williams alleged that Meta executives betrayed American values and national security by collaborating with the CCP to develop censorship tools that silenced critics.  She shared 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.”  Wynn-Williams continued, “Throughout those seven years, I saw Meta executives repeatedly undermine U.S. national security and betray American values ... to win favor with Beijing and build an $18.3 billion business in China.”

In addition, her testimony outlined that Meta allegedly

• deleted Meta accounts of Chinese dissidents on U.S. soil at China’s request and allegedly lied about it in a Senate hearing.
• created a team dedicated to loosening privacy rules while granting the Chinese government access to massive amounts of user data in China and Hong Kong via a secret internal project dubbed “Project Aldrin.”  Meta was allegedly aware access could compromise Americans’ data.
• launched its Oculus VR business under Xiaomi Branding in China and also launched multiple apps there without seeking authorization from the U.S. government, and without informing Congress, the public, or its shareholders, according to Hawley.
• created a physical data pipeline between the U.S. and China, which she said was stopped only thanks to congressional intervention.
• briefed the CCP on emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, with the explicit goal of helping China “increase global influence and promote the China Dream.”

Wynn-Williams further warned that Meta’s A.I. model, Llama, was directly aiding China’s development of military-grade A.I. systems like DeepSeek.  According to internal documents provided to committee members, correspondence shows that Meta pitched its value to Chinese officials by claiming that it could help China extend its global tech dominance.

“There’s a straight line you can draw from these briefings to the recent revelations that China is developing AI models for military use,” Wynn-Williams said.

She also claimed that Meta misrepresented its presence in China, publicly denying operations there when SEC filings showed China as its second-largest market.

Notable during the hearing was Wynn-Williams’s account of Meta’s retaliatory campaign against her after she began raising concerns internally and filing whistleblower complaints with the SEC and Department of Justice.  She filed a shareholder resolution urging Meta’s board to investigate its ties to China.

Meta responded by suing her for hundreds of millions of dollars and allegedly obtaining a gag order that restricts her from speaking — even to members of Congress.  This legal effort, she noted, allegedly directly contradicts Meta’s public 2018 commitment to waive forced arbitration in whistleblower cases.  “This gag order was sought by a company whose CEO claims to be a champion of free speech,” she added.

In addition to national security concerns, Wynn-Williams testified that Meta deliberately exploited young users to maximize profit, claiming that Meta

• viewed users aged 13 to 17 as “vulnerable yet very valuable.”
• used behavioral data — such as deleted selfies — to profile emotional states and sell targeted ads, often related to beauty and body image.
• consistently blocked internal proposals that sought to improve youth protections when those proposals conflicted with revenue goals.

These practices, she claimed, worsened mental health challenges for teen users, particularly young girls.

Image: Kate Ter Haar via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.