For a timeline of events regarding Ryan’s experience as a whistleblower at Facebook and for press photos, please go here. Scroll down for his full bio.
To contact Ryan, please visit his contact page.
Ryan graduated in 2015 with a bachelors degree in Spanish Linguistics
from Arizona State University, where he also participated
in psychology research as a research assistant for
the P.E.A.R.L. Lab-Perception, Ecological Action, Robotics
and Learning. As founder of The Hartwig Foundation
for Free Speech, he hopes to keep the internet free
from undue censorship. Ryan speaks fluent Spanish
and some Portuguese. He lives in the Phoenix Metro Area,
Arizona. A few of Ryan’s hobbies include science fiction, languages, and video games.
Behind the Mask of Facebook: A Whistleblower’s Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship
Published August 2021 with coauthor Kent Heckenlively through Skyhorse Publishing
Op Eds:
https://nypost.com/2021/07/09/how-facebook-is-turning-beloved-american-values-on-their-head/
Letters to the Editor while a student at Arizona State University
https://www.statepress.com/article/2012/09/promise-arizona-deters-citizens-from-protesting
https://www.statepress.com/article/2014/09/letters-no-guns-means-criminal-haven
https://www.statepress.com/article/2012/11/letter-university-senate-restricts-land-usage-in-tempe
https://www.statepress.com/article/2012/08/campus-club-makes-chocolate-a-priority
Ryan Hartwig Bio
Censorship Expert & Facebook Whistleblower
Facebook Insider with Project Veritas
Ryan grew up in Mesa, Arizona and spent time in Mexico City as a volunteer
with a humanitarian organization. His love for Spanish motivated him to pursue
a bachelors degree in Spanish Linguistics. That expertise in Spanish led to him
finding a job with Cognizant, where he monitored and moderated social media
activity for Facebook throughout the United States and Latin America.
Ryan was a content moderator for nearly two years working for Cognizant, subcontracted by Facebook in Phoenix, Arizona. He worked in queues for Latin America and also North America, and reviewed and deleted groups, pages, posts, comments, and videos for Facebook and Instagram. Ryan currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona and is a graduate of Arizona State University. He has a degree in Spanish Linguistics.
During the 2018 U.S Mid-term elections, Ryan noticed that Facebook placed a huge emphasis on monitoring election trends, and in 2020 Facebook wanted “urgent visibility” into the Democrat Presidential Debates. Ryan personally raised up trends like “boogaloo” and “civil war” to Facebook in December 2019 during Trump’s impeachment and Facebook wanted visibility into these trends. Facebook also instructed Ryan and others to flag accounts related to “right wing extremism” on a global basis. Ryan detected a trend of policies that gave greater license to liberals while limiting the voice of conservatives, including Facebook telling content moderators to look for hate speech from President Trump’s State of the Union Address.
While at Cognizant doing work for Facebook, Ryan was targeted because of his conservative beliefs. When he shared a link to an LA times article of a peaceful protest he took part in, he was given a written warning. He writes about this experience and his time working for Facebook in his book, Behind the Mask of Facebook: A Whistleblower’s Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship.
Ultimately, after noticing many such trends that favored liberal viewpoints and banned conservative ideologies, Ryan wrote a letter to several congressmen, congresswomen and senators. After no response, he then reached out Project Veritas to expose the blatant bias and misconduct he had witnessed. He filmed with a hidden camera for 9 months and gathered hundreds of hours of footage.
Since going public in June 2020, Ryan has done more than 170 interviews. He is fluent in Spanish and semi-fluent in Portuguese. He has interviewed with national media outlets in Colombia, Brazil, Japan and Russia. He is a minor political celebrity in Brazil and has also spoken about tech censorship in Spain, Argentina, Sweden and Guatemala.
He is a regular guest on America’s Voice and has made appearances on One America News and Newsmax.
His efforts have led to a criminal referral to the DOJ for Mark Zuckerberg, and he also aided in an FEC complaint against Facebook in the John James vs Gary Peters U.S. Senate race in Michigan.
Ryan’s hobbies include reading science fiction, learning languages and playing volleyball. He currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife and newborn child.