At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Director of Global Public Policy.
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00:00Thanks for being here. That reference that I opened up with that you made in your book to a strategy, a message strategy for meta, and someone suggested tobacco as kind of the guideline that you might want to follow, some dangerous product that was lessened in intensity to the public by misrepresentations.
00:30As I mentioned at the outset, I was part of the effort to bring them down. Didn't realize I'd reached a tipping point with smoking on airplanes, but it turned out to be one, and things changed.
00:42You make a reference as well in the book that a lot of the executives at Facebook protected their own children from what might have been an exploitation.
00:57What you've described here, the algorithm that analyzes your activity on the board and says, well, just deleted a selfie. Good time for an ad. Somebody put that together.
01:12So these executives at Facebook protected their own kids from that kind of exploitation, correct?
01:18Senator, that was one of the things that shocked me when I moved to Silicon Valley is that it's a place full of, you know, wooden Montessori toys and, you know, executives would always speak about how they have screen bands in the house or, you know, I would say, you know, has your teen used the new product we're about to launch?
01:41And they're like, my teenager's not allowed on Facebook. I don't have my teenager on Instagram.
01:46Like, these executives, they know. They know the harm that this product does.
01:53They don't allow their own teenagers to use the products that Meta develops.
01:59I mean, it's – the hypocrisy is at every level.
02:04So I wanted to just tell you a follow-up to that story.
02:09Eventually, the children of tobacco executives became my greatest fans and supporters.
02:15And they would basically shame their parents by saying that, you know, the kids at school are saying this or I just heard something or I read something.
02:24Dad, tell me that you aren't part of that tobacco conspiracy to keep the truth from the American people.
02:30They became a force, a moral force in the conversation.
02:35It would just be speculation, but I hope that that is the case here as well.
02:40I hope you're right, Senator.
02:42I read these things, and so I want to ask you a question that is more generic, but I'm just curious as to the decision process at the highest levels.
02:52When there is a decision being made about what you're going to turn over, what Facebook Meta is going to turn over to the Chinese, all their demands that you said the company denied to so many other countries.
03:05But for China, they made an exception.
03:08When the decision is being made about exposing American privacy material and data so that the Chinese would have access to it, Americans not knowing that.
03:19The security questions that you raised, the AI information that is given to the Chinese that makes them, quote, more competitive, but also means that they have sources of information that could compromise the security of the United States.
03:34I mean, when you consider each one of these, they kind of grow in gravity and magnitude.
03:40Are these decisions being made strictly by Zuckerberg himself or by boards or by open discussion?
03:46How much sensitivity was there to the fact that the decisions were historic in nature and maybe even criminal?
03:56It's a really interesting question.
03:59I mean, you asked me in part about China.
04:01To give you just one example, at the governance level, which is what you're asking me, the lead independent director on Meta's board was also on the payroll for the China project.
04:23So that they had dual loyalty?
04:25I think the question around accountability and governance of this company and of tech companies more generally, there needs to be a lot more accountability.
04:39I don't think the current governance structures are anywhere close to being sufficient.
04:44Tell me that there were people at that company that you worked with that didn't sell out.
04:50Absolutely.
04:51Absolutely.
04:51Listen, there are, you know, there were amazing, amazing people and there are people who were horrified and had very strong moral conscience.
05:07And there are many of these people who've been in touch who, since the books, since these revelations have come out, who said, you know, I was in those meetings.
05:15I remember this.
05:16You know, there were people who spoke up.
05:17There were people, I regret to say that many of the people who spoke up are no longer at the company, but there are good people there.
05:24And there are people who have moral beliefs and there certainly were.
05:29But that wasn't happening at the top of the company.
05:32That wasn't happening at the executive level.
05:35And what was striking was the absence of those types of discussions at the top of the company compared to what was happening with your average people who were working at the company.
05:48And you say Mr. Zuckerberg himself prides himself on being a loyal American?
05:53I think Mr. Zuckerberg would say he does.
05:57Yes.
05:58But I don't want to speak for him.
06:00No, of course not.
06:02But I think the evidence that you've given us points in the other direction.
06:06Lying to Congress may be in the realm of a mortal sin, depending on your faith conviction.
06:12But certainly selling out the security and privacy of the United States is about as low as they go when it comes to big tech.
06:22Have you been in any conversations involving Section 230?
06:27No, Senator.
06:28All right.
06:29Well, that's certainly a law that we're taking a close look at here, which shields companies like this from personal, civil liability.
06:39Many of us believe the committee has voted accordingly that if they could be held accountable for their decisions in a court of law and find damages money to money,
06:51that this would have more impact than some of the best speeches we could put together as members of Congress.
06:57So we're going to work on that.
06:58Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing.
07:00But I particularly thank you because you've referred to in your testimony what you call in the book Three Pistols,
07:09which I think is your reference to your three children.
07:12You've done a great thing for them and for kids all across the world.
07:16Thank you for testifying today.
07:18Thank you, Senator.