Former Executive Reveals Facebook's Censorship Tools for Hong Kong and Taiwan Posts

Photo: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

[People News] Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Global Policy Director at Facebook, testified on Wednesday (April 9) before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. She revealed that Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg personally designed and implemented Facebook’s censorship tools. According to her, any post that exceeded 10,000 views would automatically be submitted for review by a “chief editor,” and this system was used in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials even provided suggestions to "optimize" the tool.

According to Radio Free Asia, back in 2018, when Zuckerberg was questioned by the U.S. Congress about Facebook’s potential cooperation with CCP censorship and surveillance, and whether it developed censorship tools to enter the Chinese market, he responded that since Facebook had been blocked in China since 2009, “we don’t know exactly how the Chinese government would apply their laws and regulations to our content.”

However, Wynn-Williams directly accused Zuckerberg of misleading Congress. She stated that Facebook had already made hundreds of related decisions before 2009, and by 2018, had been in direct talks with the CCP for four years. She claimed that CCP officials were involved in testing the censorship tools and gave specific input such as, “this section needs to be modified,” “we need to add this feature,” and “you must be able to intercept and filter out images we don’t want to be seen.”

"They all want to silence critics"

Wynn-Williams said the original plan was for the "chief editor" to review content posted by users in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The powers granted were not limited to reviewing popular posts—they included the ability to fully shut down Facebook services in certain regions like Xinjiang and to adjust or shut down platform services on sensitive dates, such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

She also revealed that Meta once considered setting up a data center in China, and that Meta employees briefed the CCP on their artificial intelligence (AI) achievements, potentially jeopardizing U.S. personal data and national security. “The CCP and Zuckerberg have one thing in common: they both want to silence critics,” she said.

Wynn-Williams criticized Zuckerberg for being two-faced: “This man is always playing different roles. When I was still at the company, he even wanted the Chinese president to name his first child. He was learning Chinese at the time and was censoring content without restraint.” She added that while Zuckerberg now presents himself as a "free speech advocate," his roles keep changing and "no one knows what his next role will be."

Meta Denies: "Filled with false accusations"

Senator Josh Hawley stated after the hearing that he plans to further investigate whether Zuckerberg misled Congress in his testimony and will review more internal documents provided by Wynn-Williams. Referring the matter to the Department of Justice is also on the table. He described the case as “just the tip of the iceberg,” with much more needing clarification.

Meta's communications director, Andy Stone, told AFP that Wynn-Williams’ testimony was “divorced from reality and full of false accusations.” While Zuckerberg had publicly expressed interest in offering services in China—details of which have been widely reported for over a decade—Stone emphasized, “We currently do not offer any services in China.”

Additionally, Wynn-Williams’ book, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism, was published on March 11. It recounts her experiences at Facebook between 2011 and 2017 and reveals that Meta once deleted the account of a Chinese dissident and ignored staff recommendations to create safeguards against CCP access to U.S. user data. Although Meta temporarily barred her from disparaging the company through arbitration, it didn’t stop her book from becoming a bestseller.