Hawley demands Zuckerberg testify on alleged ties between Meta, China

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling on the tech billionaire to testify on Capitol Hill after a Facebook whistleblower alleged the company had ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

"After yesterday’s shocking revelations, it’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to come to Capitol Hill, take an oath, and answer to America for how he has sold out our country’s security for China profits," Hawley wrote in a post on X that included images of his letter to Zuckerberg.

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In his letter, Hawley lays out allegations made by Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams during a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Wynn-Williams served as the director of global public policy at Facebook for almost seven years.

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"We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China. And during my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public," Wynn-Williams told the committee.

The former Facebook employee claimed that the company deleted the account of a Chinese dissident living in the U.S. after pressure from Beijing and gave the CCP user data. She claims that Meta began briefing the CCP as early as 2015, and said they focused on AI and other forms of "critical emerging technologies."

The dissident that Wynn-Williams referenced was likely Guo Wengui, whose page was temporarily shut down in 2017. At the time, Facebook claimed Wengui violated community standards, according to Reuters.

Then-Sen. Marco Rubio grilled Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch about Wengui’s page in 2017. Stretch denied Facebook was ever pressured by China to delete the page.

Meta denies that it does business in China and refutes Wynn-Williams’ allegations.

"Sarah Wynn-Williams' testimony is 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," a Meta spokesperson told Fox News.

Fox News’ Alexa Angelus contributed to this report.