Facebook Whistleblower: Iran Using Facebook For Espionage On Other State Governments, Company is ‘Very Aware’

China and Iran have used Facebook for surveillance purposes, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told Congress on Tuesday.

During a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, Haugen, who quit Facebook in May, said that during her “time working with the threat intelligence org., so I was a project manager supporting the counter-espionage team, my team directly worked on tracking Chinese participation on the platform surveilling, say, Uyghur populations in places around the world. That you could actually find the Chinese, based on them, doing these kinds of things.”

“We also found active persuasion of, say, the Iran government doing espionage on other state actors, so this is definitely a thing that is happening,” she continued. “And I believe that Facebook’s consistent understaffing of the counterespionage, information operations and counterterrorism teams is a national security issue.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) asked Haugen, “So you are saying, in essence, that the platform, whether Facebook knows it or not, is being utilized by some of our adversaries in a way that helps push and promote their interests at the expense of America’s?”

“Yes,” replied Haugen. “Facebook’s very aware that this is happening on the platform and I believe the fact that Congress doesn’t get a report of exactly how many people are working on these things internally is unacceptable because you have a right to keep the American people safe.”

Watch above, via CSPAN.