WSJ Report: Facebook Exempts Elite High-Profile Politicians, Celebrities From Rule Enforcement

After reviewing internal company documents, the Wall Street Journal has published a not-so-shocking report that Facebook has a special system that exempts certain elite high-profile users from following the rules of the “platform.”

About 5.8 million elite high-profile users, to be exact.

“In private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.”

Apparently, certain users who are considered “newsworthy,” “influential or popular,” or “PR risky” aren’t held to the same standard and don’t experience the same kind of rule enforcement that ordinary, non-elite users do.

The system is nicknamed “XCheck” or “cross check,” and was suppose to make up for the shortcomings of Facebook’s combined human and computer moderating process. It gave Facebook employees the power to “whitelist” certain users, which is essentially the opposite of being “blacklisted.”

But there are apparently still some issues. (As though the entire system of elitist exemption isn’t itself an issue.)

The WSJ found a 2019 audit that showed that Facebook doesn’t keep careful records of who gets “whitelisted” and why, which the Journal says poses “numerous legal, compliance, and legitimacy risks for the company and harm to our community.”

You don’t say. This is me pretending like I’m shocked.

That essentially means that employees of this massive company, that has significant control over the flow of information in this country and the world, are allowed to “whitelist” anyone they want and they don’t have to be accountable for who they “whitelisted” or why. Theoretically, they could “whitelist” anyone they politically or socially agreed with, and no one would be the wiser. But the information and content spreading on Facebook would be affected. I’ll tie this in later.

When these elite “high-profile” users are added to the XCheck system, it becomes more difficult for moderators to take action against them for violations of rules. And not just more difficult to take action, but also less likely that they’ll even consider it.

In fact, documents reviewed by the Journal showed that less that 10% of XCheck flagged content was actually reviewed.

An article by Business Insider was careful to inform its readers that former President Donald J Trump was one high-profile user who benefited from this system (presumably before he was banned from the “platform”). And that’s because they have to make it look less politically and socially biased against conservatives.

But I have another theory about this whole system, and it definitely includes bias.

What do you think are the chances that the vast majority of elite “high-profile” users who are specifically exempted from some or all of the rules are also elite high-profile individuals who vocally support the radical woke “progressive” leftist narrative?

They’re allowed to say whatever they want on the “platform,” as long as it continues to support or promote the approved radical woke “progressive” leftist narrative.

Misleading info? No problem. Missing important context? Not an issue. Sharing false or debunked stories? No worries. Posting dangerous or violent rhetoric against the “correct” kind of people? We gotchu, boo.

Perhaps if you’re one of their special exempted high-profile users, Facebook won’t fact-check you, won’t add info tags, won’t run every post through algorithms to filter your content, and won’t suppress your viewership or shareability.

And I think the motivation is twofold.

Firstly, they want the revenue generated by these high-profile users who have millions of followers, millions of daily views, and millions of post shares. And if Facebook starts adding info tags, fact-checking, locking profiles, censoring, and diminishing post visibility, then these high-profile users might not post quite so often. This would lead to fewer followers, fewer daily views, and fewer post shares, and thus generate less revenue for the company. And money is one of the most powerful motivators.

Secondly, Facebook, which has essentially become a contracted PR firm for the Biden administration and radical woke “progressive” narratives generally, likes for these high-profile users with millions of followers, millions of daily views, and millions of post shares to be able to spread these radical woke “progressive” narratives. And holding them to the same standard of “platform” rules might hinder the spread of those narratives.

And remember how employees can “whitelist” anyone they want and there aren’t any good records being kept of who or why, so there’s really no accountability for the “whitelisting?” Sure seems like the perfect opportunity for some politically and socially biased “whitelisting,” don’t you think? Just “whitelist” the people who promote the “correct” political or social narrative, and then turn them loose on the public who doesn’t know that the information they’re seeing isn’t subject to rules or standards.

Once again, Big Tech proves themselves to be the hypocritical ruling-class elitists that they are.

And once again, the average American realizes how rigged the system really is.