Prosecutors want to know whether Facebook favors prominent vaccine opponents
Criticism of Facebook and its policies is nothing special, but now prosecutors from 14 US states are addressing the question of whether prominent anti-vaccination activists have benefited from special treatment here. As the “ Standard letter to Zuckerberg published on Thursday, the prosecutors are referring to media reports that the network made exceptions for well-known users when enforcing its Internet rules.
This accusation was made to FB boss Mark Zuckerberg in a published letter on Thursday. This preference could be made possible by a system called “Crosscheck” that has been causing trouble for FB for a long time. The state attorneys general now want to examine closely whether the prominent users mentioned included a particularly large number of anti-vaccination activists with a particularly large number of Facebook subscribers.
Of particular interest to them is the so-called “ disinformation dozen ” (particularly influential fake news spreaders), i.e. the few people who, according to analyzes in the USA, spread the majority of all false information about corona vaccines.
“Internal Facebook documents released by whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed that Facebook maintains a “whitelist” of users under the project name “XCheck,” allowing millions of celebrities, politicians and journalists to share content that goes against violate Facebook rules. The documents indicate that these posts included harassment, incitements to violence and disinformation about vaccinations and COVID-19.”
Facebook denies these allegations, but prosecutors point to posts from anti-vaccination activists that have remained on the platform. You also want to check whether financial reasons played a role.
Click here to read the letter (pdf)
Source: The Office of Attorney General William Tong
Author: Angelika Godau
Notes:
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