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Senator Blumenthal, if you're ready, I'll turn it over to you.
Thanks very much. Mr. Chairman.
In order to operate in China, the Communist Party requires
American companies to register with authorities and host
servers inside the country. And I think it's pretty well
known that Chinese law requires that security services are
allowed access to any data hosted within the country.
Did any of Facebook's security team or its engineers raise
concerns to management about Americans private information
being exposed to Chinese spying? Yes, Senator, they did.
How did they do that? They, they documented their
concern in a number of ways. They they noted that this would
happen, that the Chinese would get access to the data.
And they also noted this their concern in in, in other
discussions and other documentation saying, you know,
my red line as a security engineer is to not be
comfortable with this, but my red line is not Mark
Zuckerberg's red. Line.
Maybe you can explain what you mean by that.
The engineer was saying that they were not comfortable with
the way the the China project was structured that would allow
the Chinese Communist Party to potentially access American
citizens data. And but in saying that, they
noted that, you know that that's a red line for me as a security
engineer. That's not Mark Zuckerberg's red
line. Did you sense he had any red
line? I did not.
If he did, you don't know what it was.
I don't. If you have more information
related to these spying risks, would you be willing to share it
with a committee? I would, Senator.
And Mark Zuckerberg was knowledgeable about the
planning. And do you know whether he was
knowledgeable about the risks as well?
My understanding is that the the risk is the hardest part of the
plan, so it's unthinkable that he was not aware of the risk.
Nothing happened here without his approval and knowledge.
This was a project unlike any other project I worked on during
my time at Meta in that it was so centrally LED by Mark
Zuckerberg and he was so personally invested in this
project. He learnt Mandarin, He travelled
to China more than any other country.
He had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees.
And this was, it's, it's hard to overstate how different this
project was to any other project I experienced in my many years
at the company. So there would be no credibility
to his denying that he knew about the risks, he knew about
the concerns raised by his engineers and his China team,
and he was intimately involved in not only the planning and the
engineering, but also in taking those risks.
Senator, he was he was traveling to Beijing.
In the documents submitted to the subcommittee, Facebook
appears to have been willing to provide the data of users in
Hong Kong to the Chinese government at a time when pro
democracy protesters were opposing Beijing's crackdown.
Is that impression correct? And how did Facebook treat
Taiwan or Hong Kong? So that impression is correct.
And one of the more surprising things is that as part of the
censorship tool that was developed, there were virality
counters. So anytime a piece of content
got over 10,000 views, that would automatically trigger it
being reviewed by what they called the chief editor.
And what was particularly surprising is that the virality
counters were not just installed, but activated in Hong
Kong and also in Taiwan. Let me ask you, I raised in my
remarks, and I know that a number of other colleagues did
as well, the record of misrepresentation and deceit.
One of our former colleagues, Senator Leahy, asked Mark
Zuckerberg in 2018 whether Facebook would comply with
Chinese censorship and surveillance demand.
He even asked if Facebook had built censorship tools to enter
the Chinese market, and Zuckerberg responded, I'm
quoting because Facebook has been blocked in China since
2009. We are not in a position to know
exactly how the government would seek to apply its laws and
regulations on content were we permitted to offer our service
to Chinese users. Miss Wynnell Williams, was that
accurate? That is not accurate.
You know, hundreds of decisions had been made, and by 2018,
they'd been in dialogue directly with the Chinese Communist Party
for four years. The fact is, by 2018, Facebook
built, it even turned on censorship and surveillance
tools that it developed. It developed for Chinese
security officials, correct? It developed and those Chinese
Communist Party officials tested the censorship tool and would
give feedback and say this needs to change or we need this or we
need confidence that you can capture images and and filter
images we don't want seen it. You know, we talk a lot about
1984. Facebook developed a virility
counter tool that directed any posts of over 10,000 views to be
reviewed by an Orwellian named quote UN quote chief editor.
Is that correct? That's correct.
And was the chief editor's geographic reach limited to
mainland China, or did they plan to cover other other location?
They plan to cover Hong Kong and Taiwan as my understanding.
So their surveillance operation was directed at Taiwan?
That's my understanding, Senator.
And Hong Kong. That's my understanding.
Was the editor in chief's or the chief editor's power limited to
reviewing viral posts? Oh no, it's extensive power.
The chief editor would be able to turn off the the entire
service in specific regions, for example Xinjiang, or would also
be able to turn off or or manage the service on significant
anniversaries like the anniversary of Tiananmen Square.
So the chief editor, a creation of Facebook, was an Orwellian
sensor that applied to locations outside mainland China, to
Taiwan and Hong Kong, to people not within the legal
jurisdiction of China, but also obviously the Chinese
themselves. And it was designed and
implemented by Mehta and Mark Zuckerberg.
Correct, Senator. Even though its very existence
was denied before this committee in 2018.
That's correct, Senator. Silicon Valley companies are
famous, as you know, for their moon shot programs such as
Google X. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg
spent billions of dollars on the metaverse and AI.
He even named or renamed the company as part of a pivot to
focus on that technology. Did Facebook engage in any moon
shot efforts in China and were these efforts walled off or
protected from the Communist Party?
And they did, Senator, and I'd be happy to follow up with the
committee on this point. You'd prefer to follow up
privately? Just one last question.
I'm interested in how much of A national champion Meta actually
is for the United States. Did Facebook share information
about its facial recognition, artificial intelligence models
and other sensitive technologies to Chinese security officials?
In other words, did it share that significant technology
regarding facial recognition and other surveillance methods?
Look, the The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was
wrapping the American flag around himself and calling
himself a patriot and saying he didn't offer services in China
while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business
there. And he wrapped the flag around
himself, even as he disclosed sensitive technologies that
enabled the Chinese to gain the upper hand on surveilling its
citizens, but also the upper hand in engaging with us.
And he continues to wrap the flag around himself as we move
into the next era of artificial intelligence.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am
delighted. Hey, thank you so much for
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