Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been accused by a whistleblower of having attempted to allow censorship of Facebook content by the Chinese government to enter the Chinese market in the past.
According to the Washington Post (WP) on the 9th (local time), the media reported that the allegations were from Sara Yin-Williams, a former global policy head of Meta, claiming that the company used extreme measures such as censoring content and blocking political dissent in order to obtain approval from the Chinese Communist Party to enter China from 2015 for several years. The whistleblower's complaint was reportedly submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April of last year.
According to the WP report, Meta developed a censorship system for its Facebook service in China and aimed to have a 'senior editor' who would decide what content to remove and shut down the site entirely during 'socially unstable' periods.
WP reported that while Meta had engaged in concrete negotiations with officials including Liu Wei, deputy director of the Central Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, in 2015, those negotiations were halted after the Cyberspace Administration of China reviewed Meta's systems and expressed concerns that the U.S. government might access data of Chinese users. Subsequently, Liu was dismissed and sentenced to 14 years in prison for bribery charges during his tenure in 2019.
Reports indicate that even after Liu was dismissed, Meta continued to pursue entry into China and secretly launched several social apps under the name of a local company established by Meta employees in 2017.
WP reported that in 2017, when the top official of China's internet regulatory authority demanded action against the Facebook account of Chinese real estate tycoon Guo Wengui, who resides in the United States, Meta complied. Guo has focused on exposing corruption among Chinese leaders, including accusations against Wang Qishan, the former Vice President who spearheaded anti-corruption efforts and was considered a right-hand man to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
WP reported that amid fierce trade battles with China during Donald Trump's first term in 2019, Meta ultimately abandoned its plans to enter China.
In response, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone noted in a statement that it is "no secret" that Meta had an interest in its business in China, calling it "widely known for more than a decade." He added, "We ultimately decided not to pursue that idea, which was announced by Mark Zuckerberg (CEO) in 2019."