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Facebook: Some High-Profile Users 'Allowed To Break Platform's Rules' (theguardian.com) 74

Posted by BeauHD from the no-surprises-here dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Facebook gives high-profile users special treatment, which includes immunity from its rules for some, and allowed Brazilian footballer Neymar to post nude pictures of a woman who had accused him of rape, according to a report. The XCheck or "CrossCheck" system steers reviews of posts by well-known users such as celebrities, politicians and journalists into a separate system, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal. Under the program, some users are "whitelisted" -- not subject to enforcement action -- while others are allowed to post material that violates Facebook rules, pending content reviews that often do not take place.

People are placed on the XCheck list -- where they are given special scrutiny -- if they meet criteria such as being "newsworthy," "influential or popular" or "PR risky." Names on the XCheck program included Donald Trump, US senator Elizabeth Warren and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, although the report does not state whether those names were whitelisted at any point. By 2020 there were 5.8 million users on the XCheck list, the Wall Street Journal said. In one example cited by the WSJ, Brazilian football star Neymar responded to a rape accusation in 2019 by posting Facebook and Instagram videos defending himself, which included showing viewers his WhatsApp correspondence with his accuser. The WhatsApp clips included the accuser's name and nude photos of her. Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook. Instead of immediately deleting the material, which is Facebook's procedure for "nonconsensual intimate imagery," moderators were blocked for more than a day from removing the video, according to the WSJ.

The WSJ investigation details the process known as "whitelisting," where some high-profile accounts are not subject to enforcement at all. An internal review in 2019 stated that whitelists "pose numerous legal, compliance, and legitimacy risks for the company and harm to our community." The review found favoritism to those users to be both widespread and "not publicly defensible." "We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly," said the confidential review. It called the company's actions "a breach of trust" and added: "Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences." According to another internal document, enforcement procedures and rule-drafting were subject to interventions from members of Facebook's public-policy team and senior executives. One 2020 memo from a Facebook data scientist added: "Facebook routinely makes exceptions for powerful actors." The WSJ also reported that the system suffered from enforcement delays that allowed posts to stay up before they were eventually prohibited. In 2020, posts being reviewed by XCheck were viewed at least 16.4 billion times before being removed. A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement: "A lot of this internal material is outdated information stitched together to create a narrative that glosses over the most important point: Facebook itself identified the issues with cross check and has been working to address them. We've made investments, built a dedicated team, and have been redesigning cross check to improve how the system operates."
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Facebook: Some High-Profile Users 'Allowed To Break Platform's Rules' More

Facebook: Some High-Profile Users 'Allowed To Break Platform's Rules'

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  • Facebook gets more disgusting (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday September 13, 2021 @05:45PM (#61793533)

    ...by the hour, it's unbelievable.

    • Re:Facebook gets more disgusting (Score:4)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @05:53PM (#61793561)

      "We are altering the rules, pray we don't alter them any further" seems appropriate.

      • Well wait a moment. The Neymar thing. Did he out a false accusation by exposing his accuser?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          That shouldn't matter within the context of how FB operates. It does matter, in so far as how it doesn't clarify that part in the summary. However, that end result has nothing to do with how FB should handle situations like that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bookwormT3 ( 8067412 )

        I find that when considering how I feel about something I reverse the roles and see how I feel about it then. I think more people should do that.

        I imagine any moderately loyal democrat would be outraged if Facebook was censoring 'misinformation' as determined by Donald Trump or Republican party members.

        Last month I read a legal analysis of the American legal system, that the private actions of a company can be (have been, precedent in supreme court) a violation of the first amendment speech freedoms. Will b

        • Facebook has been bending over for conservatives for years [techdirt.com]. If they'd applied their rules fairly they would have to have kicked off Trump, Alex Jones, and a whole host of other white supremacists far sooner. And that's before we get to so many of whom are still on the platform, such as cross burner Charlie Kirk.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 )

          What a fantastic strawman you've got there.

          This article is about posts that violate Facebook's TOS being allowed to stay up if they're from high profile users. Trump and Elizabeth Warren are both named as being on the list of people who are allowed to violate TOS along with a Brazilian football star.

          It has nothing to do with which US political party the person is a member of. It has everything to do with how many followers they have and how many views their posts get.

          But here you are spewing out a bunch o

          • Maybe what we need is a way to limit posting to people who will read and comprehend the summary

            I have to admit I misread it too. The choice of wording - "increased scrutiny" and the choice of Warren and Trump certainly suggested the reverse of the opening statement as if they were describing two separate systems where one gets away with something and others have to tread carefully. It's a commonly held belief that "conservatives" are subject to harsher penalties and more swift action for transgressions than "liberals" who appear to be able to flout the rules so long as they are punching up. I make no

        • "Coming up, our intrepid ISN reporters speak with people on the street about the astoundingly popular new Martial Law decree by President Clark, right after this short break..."

        • You know there is such a thing as facts and truth, right? That's what determines what is misinformation, and on average the democrats are fact-based while the republicans are fantasy-based.

      • Only if followed by force-choking and "Apology accepted, Mr. Zuckerberg."

    • They were always this disgusting. We're just getting more confirmation of what was obvious.

  • The rich and famous are treated differently from the rest of us. News at 11.

    • famous?
      who is Neymar?

    • Yup. My reaction to this story was to immediately think, "So, virtual space is like meat space now. What a shock."

      People with money, or influence over money, are far more important than us fuckwads that do real work. We're cogs and need to stay in our god damned lane. Otherwise we might make one of the special people feel something other than joy and elation. And we can't have that.

  • Four legs good, two legs BETTER!

  • Facebook: "We've investigated ourselves, and found the accusations to be baseless. Not only that, but we're getting more awesome all the time."

  • ...to repeal Section 230. Now.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      This really has nothing at all to do with section 230.

    • Repeal the thing that offers protection to all websites against frivolous and vexatious suits for the comments of their users? Yeah, I can't see how that would come back to bite everyone in the ass or anything. Go pound sand. What really needs to happen is companies like Facebook that operate as publishers by exercising such arbitrary control voer their users, and in bad faith, should lose their protection under Section 230. Problem solved. Doesn't require action by the legislature, either, just a court tha

      • I think it's impossible to create any set of rules (terms of service) that isn't subjective. It will end up like the supreme court decisions about obscenity.

  • Seriously, they just manage to get more and more irrelevant as time moves on and more people realize that they're basically in the bullshitting business.

    • they just manage to get more and more irrelevant

      On the contrary, business is as good as it ever was. If they were becoming irrelevant, they wouldn't be in the news every day. And this little bit of gossip is just more gasoline. I don't know why anybody cares...

    • So basically all we need is to stick the animated corpse of Bea Arthur in front of them and everything will be solved. Brilliant!

  • Facebook says:

    "A lot of this internal material is outdated information stitched together to create a narrative that glosses over the most important point: Facebook itself identified the issues with cross check and has been working to address them. We've made investments, built a dedicated team, and have been redesigning cross check to improve how the system operates."

    My question to Facebook is, "Why is a cross check program even needed?" Shouldn't your rules equally apply to all?

    • Actually, they don't say anything about treating everyone equally. They aren't under any obligation to do any such thing. It's actually refreshing to hear someone admit it for a change.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by srg33 ( 1095679 )

        Treating everyone equally? That really is a good question. Opinion: the Terms-of-Service (and acceptance) constitute a contract therefore FB is obligiated is to follow TOS. As far I know, there is no clause/term in TOS that "says" if you have enough followers (or we like you) then the Terms do not apply.

        • I am not a lawyer either, but I am pretty sure that almost all ToS will say things like "at our discretion." The ToS are surely procedurally unconscionable and almost substantively unconscionable (you get to use the service so you receive marginal value). Nobody is going to put up a ToS that obligates them to do anything! It obligates YOU.
      • Why would any business treat everyone equally? The idea is so absurd that I have no idea why the OP would even present such a straw man. If you walk into a casino with a million dollars, you will get treated much differently than if you are homeless person strolling through to enjoy the air conditioning. Any business that didn't operate this way wouldn't last as long.

    • Mostly because a very large section of the political class would be banned within a day if they didn't get special treatment.

      I wish the people calling for the repeal of 230 would understand that 230 doesn't protect twitter from consequences of banning people (the contstitution already does that), it protects twitter/facebok when the people they didn't ban start spouting lies and defamation. And thats something thats largely kept both sides of politics online.

      If you want a completely censored internet, then

      • Yeah, repealing section 230 would have an identical outcome to the recent Texas abortion civil lawsuit free-for-all law. Everyone would shut down or massively censor to prevent a tidal wave of lawsuits.

  • Liability for Facebook? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chx496 ( 6973044 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @06:19PM (#61793629)

    I'm not a lawyer, especially not a Brazilian one, but if the internal moderation team was blocked from actually removing the revenge porn images due to decisions from higher-ups (even if they were made quite a bit beforehand), wouldn't that make Facebook potentially liable for distributing revenge porn? It's one thing to hide behind "a user posted this, we're not responsible", but it's another thing to have a situation where you knew this was wrong (their internal moderation team wanted to remove it) and kept it up anyway (because of some internal policy).

    Since Facebook is based in California, and California does have laws against revenge porn, could they be held liable here in a civil lawsuit by the victim?

    • If this were a question of copyright they would have red-flag knowledge and lose their protection under OCILLA. If you have knowledge of specific users engaged in specific illegal activities such that you could intervene to stop the same and do nothing, yes, you've become an accomplice to their actions. As always, though, the real answer is: Lawyer up and find out.

  • Can't be too bad (Score:3)

    by ixneme ( 1838374 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @06:36PM (#61793687)
    As someone who has never used Facebook, I am honestly amazed at the amount of vitriol in these recurring posts. If you're seriously that angry, stop using Facebook. If it's not worth quitting Facebook for you then stop with the righteous indignation, you're part of the problem.

    • Re:Can't be too bad (Score:4, Informative)

      by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @06:56PM (#61793757)

      The problem with Facebook is that it has become big enough to be ubiquitous and default - in a way that Twitter (which isn't really "competition") isn't.

      It's really hard to maintain a "principled stand" when most of your family members are on Facebook and they use things like the events system to try to organize get-togethers, or to send around pictures of family events. It's really hard to maintain that "principled stand" when getting the word out that you're looking for a new job means reaching out to people who are mostly using Facebook these days. It's really hard to maintain connections to your old college groups or high school friends when all of them moved from email listservs, yahoo groups or similar setups to... a Facebook page.

      I mean, you CAN cut yourself off from Facebook, but for many people, that means becoming a virtualized hermit. If there were viable alternatives, OR if Facebook hadn't choked off the third-party alternatives that could collate stuff or help you keep up with notifications, that'd be one thing, but FB is a fucking monopoly at this point.

      Truthfully, that's part of the problem. FB's far overdue to get the Ma Bell treatment. Most of their functions ought to be split off. Definitely all the companies they did "leveraged buyouts" or otherwise absorbed, like Instagram and Whatsapp, need to be spun back off again to generate some proper competition in the market.

      • Having principles is never about convenience but about doing the right thing in-spite of it being inconvenient. If it was easy everyone would have them.

        If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.

        There is an excellent documentary you can have them watch if they want to understand why you you refuse to use this garbage:

        The Social Dilemma [netflix.com]

        If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem and have no one to blame except yourself.

        Lastly, if your family and friends are dumb enough to

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Moryath ( 553296 )

          Lastly, if your family and friends are dumb enough to use Fecesbook then do you really want to associate with people that fucking stupid???

          So, 2 things here.

          #1 - The moment you used the "Fecesbook" slur, the moment I stopped giving a crap what a narcissistic retard like you thinks.

          #2 - They're not "dumb", and no, I'm not going to cut my cousins, my parents, my niece, or my goddaughter out of my life. So maybe just... fuck you, you narcissistic fucking retard.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ebyrob ( 165903 )

            There really are enough other ways to stay in contact.

            email? phone? text message?

            You'll only be helping them ween themselves off a harmful mono-culture. Just look what happens when they lose wifi [marketinggazette.co.uk] for more than 4 hours.

            Think of the Millennials!

          • Ad Hominem Fallacy much?

            Your use of retard is rather ironic given the fact that people who use Facebook are dumb enough to be the product while Facebook profits off data-mining you.

            To put it in simple terms:

            Defending that piece of shit social media system makes you a complete fucking idiot.

            But keep whining how Facebook is the problem.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by GezusK ( 449864 )

        Everything you just described would not be affected by spinning off Instagram and Whatsapp. "Breaking" Facebook up in any meaningful way would mean all those things no longer work as expected now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Subm ( 79417 )

        > you CAN cut yourself off from Facebook, but for many people, that means becoming a virtualized hermit

        It facilitates returning you to becoming a real-life participant. The opposite of a virtualized hermit, which Facebook leads to.

  • it's their website, they can do whatever they want with it. But it would be a shame if an anti-trust regulator actually regulated them and made them stop buying out their competitors every time one of them starts attracting the kids. Yep, sure would be a shame if they were completely irrelevant in 5-10 years max...
  • Trump was the poster boy for that policy and the reason - kerching!

  • That PR Statement (Score:3)

    by aerogems ( 339274 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @07:50PM (#61793901)

    Is quite notable for it's complete lack of denial. The fact that they also resort to a thinly veiled ad hominem is further proof that everything you see is legit.

  • Not to defend Facebook, but I'd be surprised if there exists a centralized social media platform that doesn't do this. If you bring in the clicks (= $$$) or have connections, then you can get away with a lot more than the common pleb.

    • It's more than just the money an account generates. The famous can bitch about your corporation very loudly.

      A local woman 25 years ago was getting on a plane. Suddenly an airline employee shoved her aside to get to some famous person on board already to help them. Can't have them giving a negative story of substandard service on a talk show or anything.

      Two problems:

      1. She was pregnant

      2. She was a columnist for the 7th largest paper in the country.

    • And why wouldn't a higher-value customer get treated differently than a lower-value customer? If I book a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, I hope its a different experience than a single room at a Fairfield Inn!

  • If you're rich, you can bend (or ignore) the rules that apply to everybody else.
    Just another example that screams "Privilege" in a voice loud enough that many people can actually hear.

  • It sounds like all this "CrossCheck" system is, is a flag that exempts a given account from any automated enforcement, and requires a manual review to action any TOS or community standards violations, possibly as far disabling checks that might auto-remove posts. It's even possible that there is a dedicated team to review any reports as promptly as possible.

    The problem isn't the existence of such a system, it's the response time and bias of the manual reviews.

    One of the most effective attacks against social media accounts is report bombing. You don't like the politics or opinions of a particular person (Trump, Biden, Zuckerberg, etc...)? Organize a large group of people to log in to Facebook (or whatever platform) and report a few of the targets posts for objectionable content, child porn, copyright infringement, spam, etc, etc. Most platforms will lock out an account automatically after some number of such reports. Depending on the actual popularity of the account, such a lockout might be permanent. Popular and polarizing users are going to attract this kind of attack on a day-to-day basis, and would be essentially non-functional under the standard automated enforcement.

    It becomes an issue when there are so many fake reports to filter through that it can take hours for something to be seen by someone and actioned. And there is also a clear risk that while the review team should be impartial, and interpret the various rules and guidelines equally, this is unlikely to be the case, and things that a "normal" person might not be allowed to post might be permitted by the review team. Or permitted only by some members of that team, and the outcome dependant on who gets the ticket.

    There are lots of fundamental issues with Facebook and social media in general, but the simple existence of a "safe harbour" for popular and/or controversial accounts is not one of them. It is a feature essential to the function of those accounts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xalqor ( 6762950 )

      Taking time to properly look into any complaints about a user's post is not the same as knowing (after looking at it) a post is in violation of the rules and intentionally doing nothing.

  • Are you telling me that Facebook is willing to do absolutely anything, no matter how unscrupulous, to make as much money as possible????

    This is my shocked face...

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