{"id":1238183,"date":"2025-03-09T17:50:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T21:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1238183"},"modified":"2025-03-09T17:50:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T21:50:48","slug":"whistleblower-complaint-expands-on-claims-that-facebook-once-built-a-censorship-tool-to-win-over-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1238183","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower complaint expands on claims that Facebook once built a censorship tool to win over China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A report from The Washington Post<\/ins><\/em><\/a> details allegations made by whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams about Facebook in a 78-page complaint filed last April with the SEC, including that the company built a censorship system in hopes to be allowed to operate in China and that it considered allowing the Chinese government to access users\u2019 data in the country. Claims that Facebook developed a content suppression tool to appease China<\/ins><\/a>, where it has been blocked since 2009, were first reported as far back as 2016 by The New York Times<\/ins><\/em><\/a>. Wynn-Williams has a memoir about her time at Facebook, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work<\/ins><\/em><\/a>, coming out this week.<\/p>\n

Wynn-Williams \u2014 a former Facebook global policy director who was fired in 2017 \u2014 said in the complaint that the company formed a team in 2014 focused on creating a version of Facebook that would comply with China\u2019s laws, under the code-name \u201cProject Aldrin,\u201d The Washington Post <\/em>reports. In addition to building a censorship system, it was reportedly proposed during negotiations with Chinese officials that the company allow a Chinese private-equity firm to review content posted by users in China, and that Facebook hire hundreds of moderators dedicated to the effort of squashing restricted content.<\/p>\n

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In a statement to The Washington Post, <\/em>spokesperson Andy Stone said the company’s past interest in the Chinese market is \u201cno secret,\u201d and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced a move away from these efforts in 2019.\u00a0<\/em>But Wynn-Williams\u2019 complaint paints a fuller picture of how far Facebook (pre-Meta) was allegedly willing to go to gain a Chinese userbase. Read The Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s full report here<\/ins><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zuckerberg has since become vocal about \u201cfree expression\u201d<\/ins><\/a> and made changes to how Meta\u2019s platforms approach moderation. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram would end fact-checking<\/ins><\/a> and instead adopt X-style Community Notes.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/big-tech\/whistleblower-complaint-expands-on-claims-that-facebook-once-built-a-censorship-tool-to-win-over-china-215047102.html?src=rss<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report from The Washington Post details allegations made by whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams about Facebook in a 78-page complaint filed last April with the SEC, including that the company built a censorship system in hopes to be allowed to operate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1238183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1238183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1238183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1238183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}