Facebook Inc. has a program that gives millions of users immunity from the company’s standard moderation practices, according to an article published in the Wall Street Journal today.

Documents obtained by the Journal seem to suggest that there’s a “one rule for us and one rule for them” situation at Facebook, relating to a program called “cross-check” or “XCheck.” According to that report, in 2020 5.8 million people were part of the program.

While regular plebes on the platform are monitored by Facebook’s main algorithm, the VIP users’ content is addressed by a separate team of human moderators. The reason, according to the documents, is to prevent “PR fires.” Nonetheless, it was also stated that only about 10% of posts that go through XCheck are seen by a human reviewer.

Some of the high-profile users that have been part of the program include former President Donald Trump and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Sporting stars and celebrities also make up the long list, with Brazilian soccer whiz Neymar da Silva Santos Jr. mentioned in the report.

Some content he posted was left up by Facebook after going through XCheck, when it would have been deleted had Neymar not been part of the program. The report states that last year, posts that usually would have been taken down were seen 16.4 billion times before they were eventually removed by XCheck moderators.

Facebook told the Journal that XCheck tries to “accurately enforce policies on content that could require more understanding,” adding that there are some issues that it’s trying to iron out.

According to Andy Stone, Facebook’s policy communications manager, although this system has been called secret, Facebook has always been transparent about having various layers of moderation. In a tweet, he pointed to a 2018 blog post that indeed talked about special moderation practices for high-profile users. “If this secret program sounds familiar, it should,” he said.

Still, Facebook has an Oversight Board that’s supposed to add that extra layer for high-profile cases. It seems it isn’t happy about the company’s backroom moderation. “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,” the board said in a tweet today.

Photo: Facebook