Welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. I'm thrilled to share some exciting news with you over the next two weeks. We're evolving. We'll be broadening our focus to cover all of the tech Titans shaping our world. You'll still get the latest insights on Elon Musk, plus so much more. So stay tuned for our official relaunch coming soon. Senator Blumenthal, if you're ready, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks very much. Mr. Chairman.
In order to operate in China, the Communist Party requires American companies to register with authorities and host servers inside the country. And I think it's pretty well known that Chinese law requires that security services are allowed access to any data hosted within the country. Did any of Facebook's security team or its engineers raise concerns to management about Americans private information being exposed to Chinese spying? Yes, Senator, they did.
How did they do that? They, they documented their concern in a number of ways. They they noted that this would happen, that the Chinese would get access to the data. And they also noted this their concern in in, in other discussions and other documentation saying, you know, my red line as a security engineer is to not be comfortable with this, but my red line is not Mark Zuckerberg's red. Line. Maybe you can explain what you mean by that.
The engineer was saying that they were not comfortable with the way the the China project was structured that would allow the Chinese Communist Party to potentially access American citizens data. And but in saying that, they noted that, you know that that's a red line for me as a security engineer. That's not Mark Zuckerberg's red line. Did you sense he had any red line? I did not. If he did, you don't know what it was.
I don't. If you have more information related to these spying risks, would you be willing to share it with a committee? I would, Senator. And Mark Zuckerberg was knowledgeable about the planning. And do you know whether he was knowledgeable about the risks as well? My understanding is that the the risk is the hardest part of the plan, so it's unthinkable that he was not aware of the risk. Nothing happened here without his approval and knowledge.
This was a project unlike any other project I worked on during my time at Meta in that it was so centrally LED by Mark Zuckerberg and he was so personally invested in this project. He learnt Mandarin, He travelled to China more than any other country. He had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees. And this was, it's, it's hard to overstate how different this project was to any other project I experienced in my many years
at the company. So there would be no credibility to his denying that he knew about the risks, he knew about the concerns raised by his engineers and his China team, and he was intimately involved in not only the planning and the engineering, but also in taking those risks. Senator, he was he was traveling to Beijing.
In the documents submitted to the subcommittee, Facebook appears to have been willing to provide the data of users in Hong Kong to the Chinese government at a time when pro democracy protesters were opposing Beijing's crackdown. Is that impression correct? And how did Facebook treat Taiwan or Hong Kong? So that impression is correct. And one of the more surprising things is that as part of the censorship tool that was developed, there were virality
counters. So anytime a piece of content got over 10,000 views, that would automatically trigger it being reviewed by what they called the chief editor. And what was particularly surprising is that the virality counters were not just installed, but activated in Hong Kong and also in Taiwan. Let me ask you, I raised in my remarks, and I know that a number of other colleagues did as well, the record of misrepresentation and deceit.
One of our former colleagues, Senator Leahy, asked Mark Zuckerberg in 2018 whether Facebook would comply with Chinese censorship and surveillance demand. He even asked if Facebook had built censorship tools to enter the Chinese market, and Zuckerberg responded, I'm quoting because Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009. We are not in a position to know exactly how the government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content were we permitted to offer our service
to Chinese users. Miss Wynnell Williams, was that accurate? That is not accurate. You know, hundreds of decisions had been made, and by 2018, they'd been in dialogue directly with the Chinese Communist Party for four years. The fact is, by 2018, Facebook built, it even turned on censorship and surveillance tools that it developed. It developed for Chinese
security officials, correct? It developed and those Chinese Communist Party officials tested the censorship tool and would give feedback and say this needs to change or we need this or we need confidence that you can capture images and and filter images we don't want seen it. You know, we talk a lot about 1984. Facebook developed a virility counter tool that directed any posts of over 10,000 views to be reviewed by an Orwellian named quote UN quote chief editor.
Is that correct? That's correct. And was the chief editor's geographic reach limited to mainland China, or did they plan to cover other other location? They plan to cover Hong Kong and Taiwan as my understanding. So their surveillance operation was directed at Taiwan? That's my understanding, Senator. And Hong Kong. That's my understanding. Was the editor in chief's or the chief editor's power limited to reviewing viral posts? Oh no, it's extensive power.
The chief editor would be able to turn off the the entire service in specific regions, for example Xinjiang, or would also be able to turn off or or manage the service on significant anniversaries like the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. So the chief editor, a creation of Facebook, was an Orwellian sensor that applied to locations outside mainland China, to Taiwan and Hong Kong, to people not within the legal jurisdiction of China, but also obviously the Chinese
themselves. And it was designed and implemented by Mehta and Mark Zuckerberg. Correct, Senator. Even though its very existence was denied before this committee in 2018. That's correct, Senator. Silicon Valley companies are famous, as you know, for their moon shot programs such as Google X. In recent years, Mark Zuckerberg spent billions of dollars on the metaverse and AI. He even named or renamed the company as part of a pivot to
focus on that technology. Did Facebook engage in any moon shot efforts in China and were these efforts walled off or protected from the Communist Party? And they did, Senator, and I'd be happy to follow up with the committee on this point. You'd prefer to follow up privately? Just one last question.
I'm interested in how much of A national champion Meta actually is for the United States. Did Facebook share information about its facial recognition, artificial intelligence models and other sensitive technologies to Chinese security officials? In other words, did it share that significant technology regarding facial recognition and other surveillance methods?
Look, the The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was wrapping the American flag around himself and calling himself a patriot and saying he didn't offer services in China while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business there. And he wrapped the flag around himself, even as he disclosed sensitive technologies that enabled the Chinese to gain the upper hand on surveilling its citizens, but also the upper hand in engaging with us.
And he continues to wrap the flag around himself as we move into the next era of artificial intelligence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator. Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am delighted. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and hit subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.