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More equal than others – Facebook’s rules for VIPs are concerning

There are things many of us would never dream of posting to Facebook because those things might get us banned.

While most users would be slapped with a ban for posting disinformation, revenge porn or threats of violence, that’s not true for all users.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal (paywall) via The Guardian, Facebook steers reviews of posts from celebrities, journalists and politicians to a system it calls XCheck or CrossCheck.

“Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences,” reads an internal Facebook report published as part of WSJ’s investigation.

The number of people on this list is immense with as many as 5.8 million people seemingly exempt from Facebook’s rules. Among the users is Neymar da Silva Santos Junior who reportedly posted Facebook and Instagram videos defending himself when accused of rape in 2019. The videos contained the accuser’s name as well as nude photos which is a violation on both Facebook and Instagram.

Despite this violation moderators were reportedly blocked from removing the video for more than a day. During that time the video was viewed 56 million times.

“After escalating the case to leadership we decided to leave Neymar’s accounts active, a departure from our usual ‘one strike’ profile disable policy,” Facebook said in its internal report.

The gateway

The issue of 5.8 million users being treated differently to the rest of the userbase is a concern but more of a concern is how slow the XCheck team is.

As reported by Ars Technica, only 10 percent of XCheck content is reviewed and as a result some of the users in the 5.8 million batch are able to post disinformation, threats of violence and worse with no consequence.

Moving into the local government elections this becomes even more concerning, especially after recent protests, riots and looting left many areas of the country in ruins.

Big tech has famously left countries outside of the US to their own devices, often with catastrophic consequences. Add the knowledge that 5.8 million users can do just about anything they want, we’re worried.

This means that initiatives such as the Local Government Election 2021 Disinformation Project which launched in September is going to have its work cut out for it.

The project hopes to hold parties who breach the Independent Electoral Commission’s Code of Conduct to account should they publish “false information about other parties” and “generally abuse a position of power, privilege or influence to influence the outcome of an election”.

Violations of the Code of Conduct can earn parties a fine of up to R200 000, have that party’s votes cancelled or have a party’s registration cancelled. Of course, parties need to be caught violating the IEC’s Code of Conduct which is where the Local Government Election 2021 Disinformation Project comes in.

“We hope that political parties will see our initiative as a deterrent and an opportunity to reflect on how they communicate with voters,” says the project’s coordinator, Phumzile Van Damme.

“Disinformation contributed to billions of rands in destruction of property and to the loss of over 300 lives in July 2021. Politicians must not use their words recklessly and endanger lives. We ask South Africans to join us and stand united against those who use disinformation to spread hatred on the grounds of race, nationality and incite violence in the quest for power,” Van Damme added.

As Code for Africa co-chief executive officer, Chris Roper told us last week, if you encounter misinformation or disinformation, it’s important to report it.

htxt.africast – The upcoming South African election and misinformation

We recommend using platforms such as Real411 which has a team of fact checkers and experts who can assess the information you report and pass it along to the relevant organisation, including the police, to investigate further.

Don’t be complacent, with the likes of Facebook proving itself to be less and less reliable when it comes to accurate, timeous information, it’s important to fight disinformation on all fronts.

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