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Facebook had a problem on its hands. People were making posts that got caught in the company's automated moderation system or were taken down by its human moderators. The problem wasn't that the moderators, human or otherwise, were wrong to take down the posts. No, the problem was that the people behind the posts were famous or noteworthy, and the company didn't want a PR mess on its hands.
So Facebook came up with a program called XCheck, or cross check, which in many instances became a de facto whitelist. Over the years, XCheck has allowed celebrities, politicians, athletes, activists, journalists, and even the owners of "animal influencers" like "Doug the Pug" to post whatever they want, with few to no consequences for violating the company's rules.
"For a select few members of our community, we are not enforcing our policies and standards," reads an internal Facebook report published as part of a Wall Street Journal investigation. "Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences."
"Few" must be a relative term at Facebook, as at least 5.8 million people were enrolled in the program as of last year, many of them with significant followings. That means a large number of influential people are allowed to post largely unchecked on Facebook and Instagram.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @02:57PM (3 children)
So, the platform is private, so the owners get to do what they want?
Well, it is not completely private for two reasons:
1) It is widely used and so a major part of public discourse.
2) It gets public support in terms of limited liability for what happens there.
This choice is definitely good for profits. What about the public good?
Is there any evidence if these select few provide especially useful wisdom, or are they just squeaky wheels?
Being a nutcase seems correlated to squeaky.
If so, then this would not be a great way to choose influencers.
We seem to have an especially bad selection these days.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:17PM
Yeah, pretty much. It's their server they can do what they want so long as it's not illegal.
Popularity isn't relevant to any internet laws that I'm aware of.
There are laws that pertain to ALL website operators and they follow them. That's not support, those are the laws of the land.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:21PM
These platforms are the product of capitalism.
Either they are privately held, in which case, they really can host what they want.
Or, they are publicly tiraded, and they are doing whatever they think is best for their investors.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @05:41PM
Yes. Next question. Move on, son.