Report: Facebook Exempts ‘Whitelisted’ Elite Users from Platform Rules
Facebook maintains a whitelist of elite users that are subject to less stringent rules than others using the platform, according to leaked materials provided to the Wall Street Journal.
Despite the company claiming in public that its rules apply equally to all users, the Journal reports that a set of privileged users including journalists, politicians, and celebrities are allowed to post rule-violating material “pending Facebook employee reviews that never come,” while others are “whitelisted” — immune from Facebook enforcement actions altogether.
The program is reportedly known internally as Crosscheck, or “XCheck.” According to the documents obtained by the Journal, it includes at least 5.8 million users, including “most government officials” — but, frequently, not the challengers to their incumbent status.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
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.
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Despite attempts to rein it in, XCheck grew to include at least 5.8 million users in 2020, documents show. In its struggle to accurately moderate a torrent of content and avoid negative attention, Facebook created invisible elite tiers within the social network.
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While the program included most government officials, it didn’t include all candidates for public office, at times effectively granting incumbents in elections an advantage over challengers. The discrepancy was most prevalent in state and local races, the documents show, and employees worried Facebook could be subject to accusations of favoritism.
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