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Those Ray-Bans, though. ? https://t.co/EKLaTsOBYf
— hypervisible dot pdf (@hypervisible) September 13, 2021
So it's like the United States basically https://t.co/Fpbmmkz7Wu
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) September 13, 2021
The Oversight Board has expressed on multiple occasions its concern about the lack of transparency in Facebook’s content moderation processes, especially relating to the company’s inconsistent management of high-profile accounts.
— Oversight Board (@OversightBoard) September 13, 2021
Facebook's Oversight Board asked for data from Facebook's secret system for exempting "VIPs" from immediate consequences for hate speech and the like.
— Christopher Mims (@mims) September 13, 2021
Did Facebook give up the data? https://t.co/HvhRE74ekr
“These people can violate our standards without any consequences.”
— Georgia Wells (@georgia_wells) September 13, 2021
Internal Facebook documents reveal a huge class of elite users who don’t have to follow the rules—and regularly break them.
By @JeffHorwitz: https://t.co/LyGn3nf6wW
Thanks to @JeffHorwitz for excellent reporting on FB's Xcheck system (publicly always discussed as "Crosscheck" in a bit of a shibboleth.)
— Sophie Zhang（张学菲） (@szhang_ds) September 13, 2021
As I've said repeatedly, the decision by FB to give immunity to the rich and powerful is publicly indefensible and one of its worst aspects https://t.co/NW2AbnEiBx
WSJ has reviewed an a large number of internal Facebook documents and is publishing a major investigative series
— Ryan Knutson (@Ryan_Knutson) September 13, 2021
Here's the first story by @JeffHorwitz https://t.co/jtRIolpESJ
Facebook Oversight Board issues statement regarding @JeffHorwitz exclusive in WSJ: re Facebook special treatment of high profile accounts: https://t.co/5taySnnBsA
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) September 13, 2021
Giving some users special treatment isn’t unheard of. Twitter does it for world leaders, too. But it does create some real problems as this story points out (and as we saw repeatedly with a former US President…)
— Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) September 13, 2021
In 2020, @Facebook exempted politicians, pundits, & officials from its civic integrity & public health policies, many of whom superspread disinformation: https://t.co/iEqdUvueuh
— Alex Howard (@digiphile) September 13, 2021
In 2021, tens of millions of Americans believe alternative facts about masks, vaccines, & voter fraud https://t.co/05tHRJj0c8
a wut team https://t.co/gou2c7JGh0 pic.twitter.com/Mi2xzf7o9N
— Ryan Mac ? (@RMac18) September 13, 2021
"Facebook’s system of special protections for VIP users, 'XCheck,' gives millions of 'VIPs' better treatment than normal people, shielding them from enforcement pending full time employee review, at minimum." https://t.co/GSP4YdLzL2
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) September 13, 2021
Independent oversight is essential to ensuring safe and fair discourse on Facebook, and the Oversight Board remains committed to enforcing accountability, consistency and fairness in Facebook’s content moderation processes.
— Oversight Board (@OversightBoard) September 13, 2021
In 2018, we went on to say: “This typically applies to high profile, regularly visited Pages or pieces of content on Facebook so that they are not mistakenly removed or left up. Many media organizations’ Pages — from Channel 4 to The BBC and The Verge — are cross checked."
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
So Facebook created tiers of special treatment. The lowest tier was an automatic appeal reviewed by a full-time employee. Others were offered 24 hours to "self-remediate" rather than face takedowns. And some users were just rendered immune from FB’s rules.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
No. Facebook not only didn’t give the @OversightBoard that data – it said that data didn’t exist! And cited an explanation of XCheck that its own 2019 review had specially noted wasn’t true.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
I am VERY curious to see if/how the @OversightBoard responds to this.
Athletes, celebrities and journalists (like me!) are in the system for a simple reason: Facebook is afraid of angering them with botched moderation calls / letting them see its normal enforcement system.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
Upsetting me is probably less scary than pissing off Sean Hannity, though.
This is a must read on how Facebook works -- or doesn't. Fantastic reporting by @JeffHorwitz and more to come. https://t.co/iB4FN1OBRc
— Emily Glazer (@EmilyGlazer) September 13, 2021
Some of the people who created Facebook's earliest content moderation rules walked off the job due to her new policies, and said they couldn't work at a company that had a different set of rules for VIPs.
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) September 13, 2021
“Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences,” a 2019 attorney-client privileged review noted, describing whitelisting as posing “numerous legal, compliance, and legitimacy risks for the company and harm to our community.”
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
Content moderation is imperfect. An extra layer of checks for sensitive situations so we don't make mistakes is logical and does not equate to exempting from rules. We've talked about this for years and there's no news here, despite how much WSJ wants it to seem like there is. https://t.co/7ojY2rU8Jk
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) September 13, 2021
Damning reporting by Jeff. We’ve known that Facebook gives preferential treatment to some VIP accounts, but this WSJ story has the damning documents to show how far Facebook’s preferential treatment went. https://t.co/vlTuixCRGt
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) September 13, 2021
FB’s system of special protections for VIP users, “XCheck,” gives millions of “VIPs” better treatment than normal people, shielding them from enforcement pending full time employee review, at minimum.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
this is damning stuff, excited to read what’s to come https://t.co/6fXIi72iKJ
— Tony Romm (@TonyRomm) September 13, 2021
Exactly how bad this problem was isn't clear (partly because controls on XCheck were so poor.) One thing that this story didn't get into as much as I'd like is Facebook's inability to keep things simple -- there were scores of different XCheck tags and Whitelists. https://t.co/eeMhRNQxpd
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. https://t.co/QQd4kUzoo5
— Cat Zakrzewski (@Cat_Zakrzewski) September 13, 2021
The WSJ piece repeatedly cites Facebook's own documents pointing to the need for changes that are in fact already underway at the company. We have new teams, new resources and an overhaul of the process that is an existing work-stream at Facebook.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
Instead of holding high profile superspreaders of problematic content accountable (and giving their hyper-visible content more scrutiny), FB has been protecting them: https://t.co/IVlLzsbDIB
— Kate Starbird (@katestarbird) September 13, 2021
You’re an accessory to fraud with such a toothless response. https://t.co/rr3ZxqROgO
— David Carroll (@profcarroll) September 13, 2021
.@Facebook is building a 2-tier society that offers privileges to VIP users ? https://t.co/lBY3QkpVfv
— Liberties.EU | follow us (@LibertiesEU) September 13, 2021
Damning @JeffHorwitz report on a Facebook system that exempts millions of high-profile accounts from routine content moderation systems, all but ensuring they will be held to a lower standard than regular people.https://t.co/HO4AiQyPli pic.twitter.com/O3nmsDQaKv
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) September 13, 2021
This WSJ story is a) damning of Facebook's policies and honesty; and b) only the latest evidence of the sheer impossibility of moderating at scale. It simply cannot be done in a way that will even begin to satisfy critics' demands. https://t.co/PNDS5WK8en
— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) September 13, 2021
FB has been giving famous or well-known users special treatment when it comes to content moderation. Good look here at how those users are handled and why it can be a major problem ?? https://t.co/1nFDB7TYpH
— Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) September 13, 2021
FB knew that allowing VIPs to post things like hate speech and incitement – was a “breach of trust” with users. The company has partially executed a plan to rein in the practice and “stop the bleeding,” building a centralized dashboard to track XCheck’s flaws.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
The @wsj got its hands on the biggest trove of documents ever leaked from Facebook. What they show will shock you. Our teams have been hard at work to tell you what they found. Here's the first episode of the Facebook Files. https://t.co/G2AGdYTIcP
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) September 13, 2021
Oh boy. The leaks show that Facebook exempts high profile politicians, celebrities and journalists from its rules, keeping up accounts even as these “whitelisted” accounts shared false, anti-vaccine misinformation. https://t.co/R4lnEOckSy
— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) September 13, 2021
WSJ today published a report about a FB system to give a second layer of review to content from high-profile Pages or Profiles to ensure correct application of our policies. If this secret program sounds familiar, it should. Here's what we said in 2018: https://t.co/eqErosKOrR.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
In the end, at the center of this story is Facebook's own analysis that we need to improve the program. We know our enforcement is not perfect and there are tradeoffs between speed and accuracy.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
One interesting bit of history from our book: When Sheryl Sandberg began overseeing content moderation at Facebook, she upset the company's earliest moderators by instituting a mew policy that favored VIPs, including the Australian PM.
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) September 13, 2021
This is the part that I really don't get:
— Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) September 13, 2021
If Facebook now says that it no longer wants to exempt influential people from its standard content rules...then why can't it just stop exempting influential people from its standard content rules? https://t.co/MV81Jdkmgs pic.twitter.com/rBnetmjOio
“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.” https://t.co/7YwRNskmt6
— issie lapowsky (@issielapowsky) September 13, 2021
Oh look more evidence (as if more were needed) that FB is an out-of-control juggernaut that can't be trusted https://t.co/g3BVwMI6FL
— Botvolution (@botvolution) September 13, 2021
I’ve been on a Facebook project for months, and it’s nowhere near done. But this is the first story: https://t.co/aHEE8XaOCM
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
TL:DR: Facebook, which talks a lot about democratizing voice, secretly exempted “VIP” users from its rules in “not publicly defensible” ways.
I appreciate this report
— ?Sydette Cosmic Dreaded Gorgon ?? (@Blackamazon) September 13, 2021
And
I’m really gonna need EVERYONE AND I MEAN EVERYONE
to recognize that marginalized knew this
Because these exemptions almost entirely around marginalization and kyriarchy
Which they knew in 2016 but WHO the targets were made it okay https://t.co/cUFFBqamVy
The Board has repeatedly made recommendations that Facebook be far more transparent in general, including about its management of high-profile accounts, while ensuring that its policies treat all users fairly.
— Oversight Board (@OversightBoard) September 13, 2021
Damning story. I wrote about how fb entirely whiffed on giving more detail on the X-check process for VIP accounts in its responses to the @OversightBoard's questions in the Trump case. Now we know why (although, tbh, we already knew, right?)https://t.co/WIVLbl3V2K https://t.co/GDLM0HXDjX pic.twitter.com/rT3eaH78KD
— evelyn douek (@evelyndouek) September 13, 2021
I’ve always wondered why some cannabis accounts get taken down on Instagram and others, particularly celebrities, stay up no matter what they post.
— Sam Houston (@samhouston) September 13, 2021
Now I know: https://t.co/zmX8sliLu4
So that’s story #1. There are going to be a lot of stories, because the WSJ has put a whole team on this and the material is just that good. Also there’s a podcast, and it’s so very good.
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
There are other issues. In his article, Jeff Horwitz quotes Mark Zuckerberg making statements to Congress about our misinformation policies and Fact Checking program.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
On the flip side, whitelisted candidates weren't removed after the election while I was there. There existed essentially a hack that you could run for state senate and get 10% of the vote, and 2 years later FB wouldn't fact check you (actual example; think it's changed by now.)
— Sophie Zhang（张学菲） (@szhang_ds) September 13, 2021
"For example, we have Cross Checked an American civil rights activist’s account to avoid mistakenly deleting instances of him raising awareness of hate speech he was encountering.”
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
The opposite is also true. Facebook moderators target individual accounts for repeated harassment, usually due to personal political disagreements. There is little oversight. @Facebook is without a doubt the worst social media offender. https://t.co/FIpV9xUWbG
— Aram Shabanian (@ShabanianAram) September 13, 2021
With great power comes less responsibility, perfect system. https://t.co/SRFJpbnlMo
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) September 13, 2021
As we said in 2018: “‘Cross-check’ simply means that some content from certain Pages or Profiles is given a second layer of review to make sure we’ve applied our policies correctly.” There aren’t two systems of justice; it’s an attempted safeguard against mistakes.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
How can anyone work at comms at Facebook, I have no idea. Every day there’s a new leak which shows how they’ve lied, how they’ve deceived someone, and behaved unethically. This company is irredeemable, reputation-wise. https://t.co/PIcHKkxb6u
— Alex Malouf (@alex_malouf) September 13, 2021
Earlier this year, though, Facebook’s @OversightBoard – the outside body it created to ensure accountability in its content moderation work – asked for data on XCheck. Would Facebook give up the data thereby embarrassing itself but accepting true oversight?
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
"We may also Cross Check reports on content posted by celebrities, governments, or Pages where we have made mistakes in the past."
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) September 13, 2021
This is a major project based on a trove of internal Facebook documents and Jeff has been a generous and thoughtful colleague through it all. There’s more to come, but here’s the first of the series. https://t.co/E0KAPr7VQ5
— Deepa Seetharaman (@dseetharaman) September 13, 2021
Facebook censors content of billions of users, but has a separate "elite" policy that allows the privileged few to post violent or sexist comments or share false information about the pandemic. Are you surprised? I'm not.https://t.co/GMS11Nbfhy
— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) September 13, 2021
Reading this @JeffHorwitz story really closely because it is just so chock full of info, including this bit: that XCheck "didn’t include all candidates for public office, at times effectively granting incumbents in elections an advantage over challengers." https://t.co/Tc56fUEwko
— issie lapowsky (@issielapowsky) September 13, 2021
"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."https://t.co/lo46UQ52UP
— ((( Daniel J Cohen ))) (@mrdancohen) September 13, 2021
Today on #TheJournal:
— Ryan Knutson (@Ryan_Knutson) September 13, 2021
The first in a special investigative series about FACEBOOK... based on a raft of internal company documents
Part 1: @JeffHorwitz on a secret policy that exempts MILLIONS of users from Facebook's rules https://t.co/XldCSPlfvp
The podcast covering the Facebook leaks discusses the details in depth. And it's bad. Very bad. https://t.co/4kZUAVSx9Dhttps://t.co/RXNKwYa7km
— Stephen Diehl (@smdiehl) September 13, 2021
Here's the podcast for this one, which may very well be better than my version (and has more information about the overall project and team): https://t.co/NRZSI87xNb
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) September 13, 2021
I found it on WSJ website. "The Facebook Files" if you want to search yourself. https://t.co/sUbisufRrm
— __________ (@mulderfan) September 13, 2021
This new @JeffHorwitz WSJ piece exposing Facebook’s practice of whitelisting high-profile accounts from flags automatically blocking certain content could help explain why some large marijuana businesses can post on Instagram while others get shut down.https://t.co/Ge6nAtClD3 pic.twitter.com/WzFWowBH6p
— Tom Angell ??ⓥ (@tomangell) September 13, 2021
If your outrage at @Facebook wasn't quite at boiling level, let me assist.
— Heather Somerville (@heathersomervil) September 13, 2021
From my colleague @JeffHorwitz: 5.8 million Facebook users are part of an elite group that is exempt from the so-called rules that are supposed to be governing content on its site.https://t.co/TugFNj5YoE
Facebook's XCheck Program Reportedly Gives 'Elite' Users Special Treatment | PCMag https://t.co/aVIBarzs53
— Eliza (@elizableu) September 14, 2021