Does Facebook Have Different Rules for VIPs? Report of Leaked Documents Suggest It Does

September 13th, 2021 2:51 PM

Facebook reportedly has a specific set of elite users who don't have to follow the same censorship rules applied to average users. 

There’s a club of elites who don't have to follow the same rules, and Facebook has reportedly hidden it until now. “A program known as XCheck has given millions of celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users special treatment, a privilege many abuse” reported The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The Journal suggested that XCheck “was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists.” In practice, however, it reportedly “shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process.” 

The report described some users as being “whitelisted” or “rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.”

The list does not appear to merely include politicians whose statements may be important for public knowledge. “In 2019, it allowed international soccer star Neymar to show nude photos of a woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his fans before the content was removed by Facebook.”

The Journal directly scorched Facebook as an institution: “In describing the system, Facebook has misled the public and its own Oversight Board, a body that Facebook created to ensure the accountability of the company’s enforcement systems.”

XCheck “was designed for an important reason: to create an additional step so we can accurately enforce policies on content that could require more understanding,” Facebook’s Policy Communications Directoracebook spokesman Andy Stone reportedly explained to The Journal. “A lot of this internal material is outdated information stitched together to create a narrative that glosses over the most important point: Facebook itself identified the issues with cross check and has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.”

After having reportedly reviewed “an extensive array of internal Facebook communications” from Facebook, The Journal made a grim assessment of how the company is run. “Facebook knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands,” reported The Journal. “Moreover, the documents show, Facebook often lacks the will or the ability to address them.”

Big Tech censorship has disproportionately aided the left in recent years.

A shocking revelation released by the New York Post on October 14, 2020, cited purported emails from then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The news outlet reportedly exposed the alleged corrupt dealings of both father and son in Ukraine. 

Facebook and Twitter disabled links to the story in October, mere weeks before the election. The media blackout on the Hunter Biden scandal was a political game changer with dire electoral implications.

Conservatives are under attack! Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 and demand that Big Tech mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.