Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Tuesday September 14 2021, @01:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the double-standard dept.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/leaked-documents-reveal-the-special-rules-facebook-uses-for-5-8m-vips/

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @03:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @03:18PM (#1178010)

    That's the capitalist era for you.

    You can go for regulation, but that only increases barriers to entry. What all of it translates to is integration with the military-industrial complex. If you cared about freedom, this is not a road you want to go down over a *free* internet service.

    By the time we're done regulating internet speech "platforms," you'll be forcing me to host content on my personal web server from the Wolverine Watchmen on the basis that my $20 linode constitutes as "platform." Doubly so if I federate with the Fediverse. Probably you'll also want me to take down Marxist links and content too on the basis that it's anti-woman pro-rape "hate speech" or some shit.

    The Democratic Party does it almost the same as the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has its misogynerd narrative. The Republican Party has its fascist decadence narrative.