Whistleblower complaint expands on claims that Facebook once built a censorship tool to win over China

A report from 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’ data in the country. Claims that Facebook developed , where it has been blocked since 2009, were first reported as far back as 2016 by . Wynn-Williams has a memoir about her time at Facebook, , coming out this week.

Wynn-Williams — a former Facebook global policy director who was fired in 2017 — said in the complaint that the company formed a team in 2014 focused on creating a version of Facebook that would comply with China’s laws, under the code-name “Project Aldrin,” The Washington Post 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.

In a statement to The Washington Post, spokesperson Andy Stone said the company’s past interest in the Chinese market is “no secret,” and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced a move away from these efforts in 2019. But Wynn-Williams’ 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’s full report .

Zuckerberg has and made changes to how Meta’s platforms approach moderation. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram would and instead adopt X-style Community Notes.

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