Sarah Wynne-Williams, a former executive at Facebook parent company Meta, accuses the company and owner Mark Zuckerberg in a new book published this week of taking numerous steps to expand Facebook’s presence in China.
In the book, “Irresponsible People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and the Loss of Values,” she alleges that the company was willing to censor user messages and give the Chinese regime access to user data in an attempt to gain favor and favors from the Chinese Communist Party. She says the venture was dubbed “Project Aldrin.”
Wynne-Williams also reportedly claims that Facebook was willing to give the Chinese Communist Party control over all Facebook content in China and store user data on local servers. It was not disclosed why the plan ultimately fell through.
Meta said in response, "This is an employee who was fired 8 years ago due to poor performance. We do not operate our services in China today. It is no secret that we were previously interested in doing so as part of Facebook's effort to connect the world. This was widely reported a decade ago, ultimately we chose not to proceed with the ideas we were exploring."
