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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: 4, Informative) by garfiejas on Tuesday September 14 2021, @04:05PM (8 children)
Not quite sure thats right - we (the royal we) forced one king to write the rights down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta [wikipedia.org] and his successors to write it down again every now and again over 800 years ago and when that didn't work executed another King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England [wikipedia.org] to prove that the law indeed applies to everyone...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @05:25PM (5 children)
Quite right.
It also shows that we cannot trust profit-making entities to self regulate. Given the choice they will take profit, i.e. they are corrupt. The government, paid for and elected by We The People, is the only known mechanism for short-circuiting corruption. Anyone wanting to let the market decide is advocating for corruption, as plain as day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @06:21PM (1 child)
That doesn't follow as stated.
We may not be able to trust anyone (whether profit-making or simply government departments) to self-regulate, but that's in line with the idea of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Anyone wanting to let the government decide is advocating for corruption as surely as if they were advocating for individual market participants to decide unilaterally. There is a known solution, but it involves auditing and review - something for which government organs and bureaucrats are known to have a horror.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @04:31PM
The feedback mechanism is "paid for and elected by We The People". This strips away the profit-motive for corruption and introduces a competitive component to expose eachothers' bullshit. Show me a better solution - your "audit" idea is just a subset of these 2 things, i.e. what prevents auditors from being corrupt?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 14 2021, @08:39PM (1 child)
The tecnical term in the field of economics is "efficient" or "successful".
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @04:33PM
Yes, and if it's more efficient to bulldoze your house or put a pipeline through your property, they will do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @02:41AM
I don't know that their behavior necessarily confers corruption, in fact it could be purported that they're diligently performing the duties ascribed to them and thus paying their debt to society; it's the excision of moral culpability, the lack of skin in the game, the insulated existence, and the willing delusion, and most of all their position in the upkeep of the bureaucratic machinery that creates the air of putrescense. The reality of it is, they're oriented, morally and intellectually, to exploit the system and directed to do so. Regulation is actually really, ultimately kind of circular, the whole system of governance that acts as the undergirding for the support of undue private property is ultomately what defines all of civilizations ailments. These guys just happen to be the highly visible scapegoats at the end of the levers, and they're really just doing their jobs, and like anyone they want a quiet day at the office.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @02:01AM (1 child)
Uh, that was the nobility grabbing rights for themselves. Where were the peasants given equal rights?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @04:37PM
An ongoing process - see, e.g., history.