Whistleblower's Complaint Expands Claims of Facebook Creating a Censorship Tool to Please China.

A recent report has exposed allegations made by whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams in a 78-page complaint filed with the SEC in April. According to these accusations, Facebook allegedly created a censorship system in hopes of being able to operate in China, and even considered allowing the Chinese government access to user data in the country. These claims about the development of a tool to suppress content to appease China, where the platform has been blocked since 2009, had previously been reported in 2016 by another outlet.

Wynn-Williams, who was Facebook's global policy director and was dismissed in 2017, noted that the company formed a team in 2014 with the goal of creating a version of the social network that complied with Chinese laws, under the codename "Project Aldrin." The complaint details that, in addition to building a censorship system, it was proposed during negotiations with Chinese officials that a Chinese private equity fund review the content published by users in that country. It is also suggested that Facebook considered hiring hundreds of moderators for these efforts to remove restricted content.

For its part, a Facebook spokesperson stated that the company’s interest in the Chinese market "is no secret," and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a shift in those initiatives in 2019. However, Wynn-Williams's complaint provides a more comprehensive picture of how far Facebook (before becoming Meta) might have been willing to go to attract users from China.

In a broader context, Zuckerberg has been an advocate for "freedom of expression" and has implemented changes in how Meta's platforms approach content moderation. So far this year, the CEO announced that Facebook and Instagram would cease using fact-checks, instead adopting a model similar to X's Community Notes.