Facebook’s Alleged Censorship Efforts in China Revealed

A report from The Washington Post sheds light on allegations made by whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams about Facebook’s attempts to operate in China. According to a 78-page complaint filed with the SEC last April, the company developed a censorship system and considered allowing the Chinese government to access users’ data in the country. These claims were first reported in 2016 by The New York Times, which revealed that Facebook had built a content suppression tool to appease China, where it has been blocked since 2009.

Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook global policy director who was fired in 2017, has written a memoir about her time at the company, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, which is set to be released this week. According to the complaint, Facebook formed a team in 2014, code-named “Project Aldrin,” to create a version of the platform that would comply with China’s laws.

The company proposed allowing a Chinese private-equity firm to review content posted by users in China and hiring hundreds of moderators to suppress restricted content, The Washington Post reports. In response to the allegations, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone stated that the company’s past interest in the Chinese market is “no secret” and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a move away from these efforts in 2019. However, Wynn-Williams’ complaint provides a more detailed account of Facebook’s alleged attempts to gain a Chinese user base. For more information, read The Washington Post‘s full report here.

Mark Zuckerberg has since become an advocate for “free expression” and made changes to Meta’s moderation policies. Earlier this year, he announced that Facebook and Instagram would end fact-checking and adopt X-style Community Notes instead.

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