Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt.

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WSJ Paywall

Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt.

An extensive array of research reports, online employee debates and drafts of presentations to senior management, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, offer an unparalleled look inside the social-media giant’s failings—and its unwillingness or inability to address them.

www.wsj.com

And a podcast.

The Facebook Files, Part 1: The Whitelist - The Journal. - WSJ Podcasts

The Facebook Files, an investigative series from The Wall Street Journal, dives into an extensive array of internal Facebook documents, giving an unparalleled look inside the social media giant. In our first episode, WSJ's Jeff Horwitz explains how high-profile users from celebrities to...

www.wsj.com

Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said Facebook Inc. allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame.

In private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The program, known as "cross check" or "XCheck," was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists. Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company's normal enforcement process, the documents show. Some users are "whitelisted"—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.

At times, the documents show, XCheck has protected public figures whose posts contain harassment or incitement to violence, violations that would typically lead to sanctions for regular users. In 2019, it allowed international soccer star Neymar to show nude photos of a woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his fans before the content was removed by Facebook. Whitelisted accounts shared inflammatory claims that Facebook's fact checkers deemed false, including that vaccines are deadly, that Hillary Clinton had covered up "pedophile rings," and that then-President Donald Trump had called all refugees seeking asylum "animals," according to the documents.

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Shocking.

 

[jelly]

Engagement money and ads over everything. They'll never change unless governments bring the hammer down.

 

[Cugel]

You mean a GAFA lied??!!

 

[Army of Light]

Meanwhile the rest of us have to deal with no meaningful support from facebook. I got incorrectly banned for saying that I'm a lesbian. I was talking about how I found Matt Smith attractive despite not liking men and they flagged that as hate speech against men. And there was no appeal allowed because of covid. But these celebrities can do whatever they want and they can have back channels to someone who will answer their calls and can make a change

 

[Yamajian]

Facebook has deemed it riskier to ban high profile accounts than to be consistent. Financially they are probably right. Still an asshole though.

 

[Cugel]

Almost like real world law!!

 

[Calabi]

That's insane, why the fuck aren't governments coming down on Facebook, for this and everything else. Has no one got any brains on this planet. 😕

 

[The Albatross]

If Facebook has ever claimed that their rules apply to all members equally then that is a provably false, incorrect statement. And the evidence we have is from Nov 2015 until Jan 6, 2021.

It's laughably wrong on it's face. They've had an exemption for "world leaders" and "public people" or "newsmakers" or whatever for as long as the platform has existed, and they've admitted this -- DEFENDED IT -- in public in multiple, high profile interviews.

 

[Booya_base]

Wait what? Facebook doing something bad? Who'd a thought. Depressingly, this poster:

Almost like real world law!!

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Is spot on.

 

[Falchion]

What a terrible company. Glad I deleted mine.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Neymar did what ? Yikes.

 

[jelly]

That's insane, why the fuck aren't governments coming down on Facebook, for this and everything else. Has no one got any brains on this planet. 😕

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I always wondered if they and Google etc. have like a dossier of embarrassing, illegal private shit on politicians and their families that some party who works for them hangs over the heads of people who could hold them accountable if they get too interested in doing so.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Well yeah. Didn't take private docs being revealed to show that when there are numerous visible examples

 

[Mr Jones]

The elite are measured by an entirely different metric than the regular public. Facebook's actions simply reflect societal norms.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

I always wondered if they and Google etc. have like a dossier of embarrassing, illegal private shit on politicians and their families that some party who works for them hangs over the heads of people who could hold them accountable if they get too interested in doing so.

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I think they have everything by now.
Pretty sure it's assumed that Facebook work with intelligence agencies on occasion too, right?

 

[doof_warrior]

i mean this is pretty obvious
same goes for twitter
they only banned trump once his presidency was over

 

[nachum00]

La li lu le lo

 

[Pomerlaw]

Zucker is a little dipshit

 

[Tobor]

How is this a secret when it was shown in plain sight?

 

[PSI Rockin’ Ω]

Millions???

 

[Don Fluffles]

How is this a secret when it was shown in plain sight?

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We now have the receipts. Won't be long before lawyers come a knocking.

 

[onadesertedisland]

Fascism Book is a threat to humanity.

 

[Baji Boxer]

So they took a common injustice in society and officially codified in their company.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

I'm shocked

 

[Humidex]

Some FB people are more equal than others.

 

[Doomguy Fieri]

That Neymar shit is wild.

There's no chance any of these companies take responsibility for the absolute trash on their sites. Stephen Crowder spent a month calling some Vox guy every gay slur in the dictionary, even sold t-shirts with the dude's face, and Youtube did nothing because Crowder has millions of subs and is probably one of their most successful stars. Facebook banned Trump but the army of grifter weirdos that post the same thing have been left alone. Zuck ain't no dummy, and he knows there's profit in America's racist uncles, and there's racist uncles all over the world just waiting to also become a target market.

 

[ConradCervantes]

Zuckerberg could genuinely lay claim to being one of the worst humans to have ever lived when all is said and done. Obviously he isn't on the level of genocidal heads of state, but founding a company that that has had an immensely negative impact on civilization worldwide and practically encouraging bad actors to thrive unchecked… he's a cunt, plain and simple.

 

[Mobius 1]

One day historians, social scholars and scientists will look back and decide that Facebook and social media were close to an existential threat.

 

[Hasseigaku]

Wow, so in libertarian tech-world the rich and powerful still are afforded special privileges'?

One day historians, social scholars and scientists will look back and decide that Facebook and social media were close to an existential threat.

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This assumes that

1 People like Mark Zuckerberg won't be writing the books.
And/Or
2. People somehow find a way to live in a shared reality again where facts actually matter.