Facebook's XCheck program exempts celebrities from following platform rules

O Wall Street Journal, famous for investigative reporting and quality journalism, published a report yesterday, Monday, September 13, claiming that thanks to the program XCheck do Facebook, celebrities are exempt from following the platform's rules — which includes, of course, Instagram, and other company-owned services and platforms.

The report also shows that the list can be updated by various employees, while the moderation team deployed specifically to review posts from these so-called “elite members” is quite lean. The result? Many celebrities break the rules indiscriminately and, as the great Brazilian internet saying goes, nothing happens fejoada

How does Facebook XCheck work?

A white plate list, shall we say, has almost 6 million users. Among them are politicians, football players, actors and actresses, directors, writers and every kind of celebrity you can imagine. To cite a relatively recent example, just remember when Brazilian footballer Neymar Jr. was accused of rape and, to try to exonerate himself, posted WhatsApp conversations with the alleged victim - which showed nudes of the girl. Beyond the graphic works have not been taken down by the platform itself, it is safe to say that nothing has happened to it.

Another problem is that, according to the report, the company does not keep a track of people added to Facebook's XCheck program. Considering that almost any employee can add whoever they want to the elite group, it's a little nerve-racking to imagine the number of people who can fall into this category and effectively ignore Facebook's rules. It is also worth mentioning that celebrities, for the most part, are not aware that they are part of this white plate maneuver, at least not directly.

It is difficult to pinpoint a precise date on when Facebook's XCheck program was implemented, or if this policy has been in place since the platform's founding; what is known for sure is that it was discovered in mid-2018, when Facebook itself made a statement, claiming that, for celebrities, there were two layers of analysis for what was posted.

What does Facebook say?

In response to the report published by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook's Chief Communications Officer, Andy Stone, did what everyone does these days when they are attacked: a thread on Twitter trying to explain the functionality of this supposed cross check, which is just another name for Facebook's XCheck program. According to him, this supposed elite group is part of a second layer of analysis, as mentioned earlier, so that the company's moderators can accurately review what is posted by them.

After a lot of fussing, Stone said what all the culprits say at the end of their testimonies, the now legendary mantra “We know that the program is not perfect and that we need to improve the platform“. At least, also at the end, he said that Facebook already has new teams and new guidelines to solve these problems - the fact that this is circulating in the US Congress is no coincidence. See his full thread below:

Well, we can only wait for the development of this story, if there will be one. Meanwhile, we see Mark Zuckerberg's company expand its dominance in the so-called facebook metaverse. Also, you can see Facebook rules and so-called Community Standards No. platform's own website.

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Sources: PC Mag | Business Insider