Video: Blumenthal Delivers Opening Statement at Hearing with Meta Whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), today delivered an opening statement at a Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing entitled, “A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress,” with Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams. 

Last week, Blumenthal, PSI Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism Chairman Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced an investigation into Meta for its alleged work to censor and provide artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including surveillance software, for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In a letter to Meta, the Senators demanded all records and communications pertaining to the company’s operations within China.

“Meta is trying to buy, and even bribe, and pander its way out of any accountability. It has donated a million dollars to Trump’s inaugural fund, it started ripping up its policies on hate speech, and letting fraud and abuse run rampant on its platforms. And appallingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg has visited the White House three times to get the President to order the Federal Trade Commission to drop its antitrust case,” said Blumenthal.

Blumenthal continued, “The American people are going to be pretty outraged that Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China, that he imperiled our national security for a buck. That he compromised a highly significant American corporation for personal gain and profit.”

Blumenthal raised concerns over Meta’s plans to partner with a Chinese company to build censorship tools and provide the CCP with user data, “[Mark Zuckerberg] oversaw and personally approved plans that undermined American national security because his own engineers warned him that operating in China would expose Americans to Chinese surveillance and censorship.”

“I have opened an investigation with Senator Ron Johnson on behalf of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and we have demanded documents from Meta regarding its operations in China. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is determined to use whatever tools and instruments and powers we have to get to the bottom of all the facts here,” Blumenthal concluded.

The full transcript of Blumenthal’s remarks can be found below, and a video of his remarks can be found here. Blumenthal, Johnson, and Hawley’s letter to Meta is available here.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): Thank you, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your leadership on the Subcommittee and having this hearing, and also, on the Subcommittee that we chaired together on Technology and the Law. And I’m still hoping that we continue our work on AI. Your experience as a former law enforcement official, Attorney General of your state, as I was of mine, gives you a solid backing of interest, and I think it reflects the importance of this Subcommittee’s work that the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the full committee are here and that we have a bipartisan—a bipartisan group determined to get the truth.

And let me just say right at the start, I just so tremendously admire your courage, Ms. Wynn-Williams, in standing up to Meta, a gigantic economic and political force, and to China, that would like to see you silenced as well, and is cheering from the sidelines—or maybe not even from the sidelines—what Meta is doing. And what it is doing is absolutely despicable. It is disgusting, and the height of hypocrisy for a supposed free-speech champion, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, to use a campaign of threats and intimidation to try and silence you. But it is part of a pattern.

Meta is trying to buy, and even bribe, and pander its way out of any accountability. It has donated a million dollars to Trump’s inaugural fund, it started ripping up its policies on hate speech, and letting fraud and abuse run rampant on its platforms. And appallingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg has visited the White House three times to get the President to order the Federal Trade Commission to drop its antitrust case.

Meta will stop at nothing to dispel and disguise and deceive, and it has done it to Congress. It has done it to Congress and to the American people. Meta lied about the generational harm it was doing to young people. Suicide, eating disorders, depression. In fact, as we know from another brave whistleblower that came to the Commerce Committee, one document provided to us showed that it was part of the Facebook/Meta business model to in effect, addict kids to toxic content and destroy their lives.

One document you provided to us shows that Facebook’s advertising division was developing tools to target teens that were insecure and depressed. It was literally attempting to profit from the pain of young people. When it was caught lying about these harms, Senator Blackburn and I introduced the Kids Online Safety Act, KOSA, a bill that passed in a 91-3 vote. We’re hoping that it will pass again and this time pass the House.

The American people ought to be asking, has Facebook done anything to clean up its act? The answer is no. It actually diverted its millions of dollars to try to stop KOSA. And it spent millions of dollars in lobbying to argue that antitrust and AI regulations harm national security. And unfortunately, all of this deception and pandering and buying and I might even say bribing has been effective so far.

But the American people are going to be pretty outraged that Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China, that he imperiled our national security for a buck. That he compromised a highly significant American corporation for personal gain and profit. And your allegations and testimony matter tremendously because you have credibility. You have nothing left to lose. You have your integrity. Mark Zuckerberg has lost his through his deception. And he oversaw and personally approved of plans that undermined American national security because his own engineers warned him that operating in China would expose Americans to Chinese surveillance and censorship.

So, he not only risked our national security, but the individual security of everyday Americans, and they ought to be downright angry, outraged that he sold them out as well as America. He hid those records from Congress. He and other Facebook executives provided testimony in hearing after hearing that was misleading at best, and false at worst.

Meta has attempted to dismiss these allegations as just old news, nothing to see here. Nothing new. Well, people watching and listening to you, Ms. Wynn-Williams, will know the importance and impact of what you have revealed to the American people and to the world.

I have opened an investigation with Senator Ron Johnson on behalf of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and we’ve demanded documents from Meta regarding its operations in China.

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is determined to use whatever tools and instruments and powers we have to get to the bottom of all of the facts here. And I really appreciate Senator Hawley’s support for that investigation. He has joined our efforts, he’s a member of the Subcommittee on Investigations. And I look forward to our bipartisan—it will be a bipartisan effort—to continue this effort for truth. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you for your courage.

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