Facebook/Instagram “white listed” (racist term?) almost 6 million accounts, globally, as exempt from the content moderation that applies to all of us. Whereas their AI systems can immediately shut down posts from peons like us, the elite are exempt. Their posts, if flagged, get handed off to a specially trained group of full time FB employees – who frequently let the elite post things that we are not permitted to do.

Basically, FB has different rules for speech based on who you are and whether or not are an elite member of society or not.

FACEBOOK CONTROLS PUBLIC DISCOURSE

Source: Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt. – WSJ

This means that the elite have a more prominent say in world affairs than you or I. They treated “elites” with deference because they knew their content moderation system made mistakes – and when “elite” persons had their content censored, this often made for news coverage and bad publicity for Facebook. “Elites” include politicians, even local politicians, persons with huge online followings, academics, actors and others.

Facebook has also – publicly and repeatedly lied about its content moderation system.

Internally, FB has known their content moderation system behaves badly to the point that it causes harm to some.

The Section 230 exemption to social media companies for not being liable for user’s content needs to be removed, immediately. FB is clearly acting as an editor of user content while pretending it is not.

Nearly any FB employee could add anyone they chose to the “White list”.

For that reason alone, Facebook must be regulated by an independent, transparent panel – which will probably end up being a government agency (which may do things even worse).

Facebook has routinely deleted posts and suspended accounts over such things as a garden group discussing garden tools known as “hoes” and someone saying that “white paint colors are the worst” (in reference to, you know, paint). FB deleted many posts (later reversed) from the former head of the BBC Arabic News Service.

Artificial Intelligence is not up to the task and Mark Zuckerberg is a liar. Facebook is a menace to society.