Lawmakers are skeptical of Zuckerberg’s commitment to free speech
Meta’s latest whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, got a warm reception on Capitol Hill Wednesday, as the Careless People author who the company has fought to silence described the company’s chief executive as someone willing to shapeshift into whatever gets him closest to power.
The message was one that lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism were very open to. Their responses underscore that amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s latest pivot in cozying up to the right, his perception in Washington has not yet totally changed, even as he reportedly lobbies President Donald Trump to drop the government’s antitrust case against the company.
“He’s recently tried a reinvention in which he is now a great advocate of free speech, after being an advocate of censorship in China and in this country for years,” subcommittee Chair Josh Hawley (R-MO) said, pointing to longtime conservative allegations that Meta has suppressed things like vaccine skepticism and the Hunter Biden laptop story. “Now that’s all wiped away. Now he’s on Joe Rogan and says that he is Mr. Free Speech, he is Mr. MAGA, he’s a whole new man, and his company, they’re a whole new company. Do you buy this latest reinvention of Mark Zuckerberg?”
“If he is such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me?” Wynn-Williams asked in response. Meta convinced an arbitrator to order her to stop making disparaging statements and halt further publishing and promotion of the book, which details Meta’s alleged dealings with the Chinese government and claims of sexual harassment from a top executive. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone has called Careless People “defamatory,” but the book’s publisher said it would “continue to support and promote it.”
“We don’t know what the next costume’s going to be, but it will be something different”
Wynn-Williams also told Hawley that Zuckerberg “is a man who wears many different costumes. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child, he was learning Mandarin, he was censoring to his heart’s content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or free speech. We don’t know what the next costume’s going to be, but it will be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.”
At the hearing, Wynn-Williams testified that during her time at the company between 2011 and 2017, Meta and Zuckerberg were willing to “undermine American national security” in service of currying favor with the Chinese government. She accused Meta of working on “censorship tools” that the Chinese government could use to silence critics and provided the Chinese Communist Party American user data.
In a statement, Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels called Wynn-Williams’ testimony “divorced from reality and riddled with false claims. While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said she found it “ironic” that China was a focus of the hearing, given that when she tried to pass a tech antitrust bill, “one of the things that kept being thrown in my face and in those of others that work on this, is that ‘you’re actually going to destroy us and then China will dominate,’” she said. “Your book actually reveals the extent to which Facebook was willing to put growth over the US national interest to gain favor with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Lawmakers dared Zuckerberg to testify before their committee himself to clear up their issues with her statements. “Stop trying to silence her, stop trying to gag her, stop trying to hide behind your lawyers and millions of dollars in legal fees you’re trying to impose on her,” said Hawley. “Come to this committee, take the oath, sit there, let us question you, and give the American people the truth. We will be waiting for you.”
Wynn-Williams told the subcommittee her testimony “may be the last time I’m allowed to speak” given the legal restrictions. “It’s not going to be the last time you’re allowed to speak if we have anything to do with it,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “What I would say to Mark Zuckerberg is, stop gagging Ms. Wynn-Williams, let her speak the truth, and you come here and tell us your version of the truth, if you have the guts to do it.”