US Senator Accuses Meta of 'Lawfare' Against Whistleblower Over China and Teen Allegations

A US senator has accused Meta of using lawfare in “efforts to destroy” a whistleblower who made allegations about the social media company’s dealings with China and its treatment of teenagers.

In a letter to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, the Republican senator Josh Hawley demanded to know what measures Meta had taken to monitor Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook’s former global head of public policy, and her family.

He also accused the firm of trying to make “truthful speech so perilous that no whistleblower like Ms Wynn-Williams can ever afford it”.

Wynn-Williams made her allegations in a memoir, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism but under an interim arbitration ruling secured by Meta she is unable to speak about the book, which contains claims about it working with the Chinese government on censorship tools, and its platforms’ negative impacts on teenagers.

She sat in silence on stage at the Hay literary festival in Wales earlier this year after taking legal advice, and is suing Meta over the restrictions it secured over her.

Meta strongly disputes Wynn-Williams’s book, saying it contains several false claims, and describes her legal case as a ploy to shift more copies.

Hawley, whose senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and counter-terrorism took evidence from Wynn-Williams last year, said: “Meta’s efforts to destroy Ms Wynn-Williams with lawfare are a matter of grave public concern.”

“Ms Wynn-Williams raised serious questions about Meta’s dealings with the Chinese government, the harms Meta’s platforms pose to users, and Meta’s representations to Congress,” Hawley wrote in his letter, seen by the Guardian.

“Ms Wynn-Williams testified notwithstanding extraordinary pressure from Meta to silence her before the hearing. When she made her allegations public, Meta moved aggressively to gag her through a private arbitration.

“To this day, Meta continues to relentlessly pursue her in arbitration, attempting to bankrupt her and subjecting her and her family to constant stress.”

Hawley demanded documents relating to any Meta attempts to “monitor, track, record, or catalog Ms Wynn-Williams’ or her family members’ public statements, interviews, social media activity, or public or private travel”.

In a recent lawsuit launched against Meta, Wynn-Williams’s legal team accused the company of surveilling her public appearances, including photographing her and making written records of her movements and travel in the UK.

A Meta spokesperson said in a statement: “This former employee is trying to use the legal process to sell books, which an arbitrator already ruled broke the agreement she signed with the company when she accepted a large severance payment years ago.

“Her book is divorced from reality, disparaging and riddled with false claims.”

Meta also disputes that she is threatened with bankruptcy, stating in legal documents that she was paid a $780,000 (£580,000) severance package, which was the subject of intense legal negotiations.

New York magazine has previously reported that Wynn-Williams was paid an advance for her book of more than $500,000.

On the claim that Meta continues to use the arbitration process to block Wynn-Williams from speaking out about her book, the company’s legal filing states that she “has long waived any objection to arbitration by actively participating in it, seeking relief, filing a counterclaim, and insisting that the arbitrator should decide the issues she raised”.

Meta has previously said it did “not operate our services in China today”. It has said it once looked at doing so, but that the idea was dropped. It has previously denied targeting teenagers based on their emotional state.

Hawley said allegations about Meta’s treatment of Wynn-Williams were “deeply troubling”.

“Congress cannot permit giant corporations like Meta to crush good people who blow the whistle on corporate wrongdoing,” his letter states.