Leaked documents reveal the special rules Facebook uses for 5.8M VIPs
"These people can violate our standards without any consequences."
arstechnica.com
It's pretty damning.
Twitter flat out said they weren't going chastize Trump while he was President right up until they could no longer ignore the stuff he tweeted which violated their TOS, so yeah, they do.Twatter and google probably have similar lists of people who can do no wrong.
According to the article, XCheck isn't a total free pass -- people with this status, which are basically defined as people who could cause PR trouble for Facebook if moderated, are moderated specifically by Facebook staff as opposed to the normal automatic algorithms and part time volunteers. It's not *fair*, but it's arguably a pretty rational way to handle people who can kick up a big, public fuss anytime moderation action is taken against them.
The main reason it became more of a free pass than intended was Facebook didn't allocate enough staff to this particular duty, so the already more lax standards became even more lax. That's definitely on Facebook, but I don't think I'd characterize it as a damning conspiracy.
And, you know, the fact they claimed they had the same standards for everyone?
Not really. Most TOS's have terms which basically say "you agree not to sue us", and "we can terminate your account for any reason or no reason at all".Gonna make those lawsuits a lot harder to defend against.
Not really. Most TOS's have terms which basically say "you agree not to sue us", and "we can terminate your account for any reason or no reason at all".
Contracts generally have a written section which basically says "if parts of this contract are not valid the parts which are valid remain valid". Lawyers aren't stupid.But are TOS legally binding, no matter which terms? One can argue, for good or bad, that some terms of service do violate the law of the land and therefore aren't binding - 'you agree not to sue us' can be taken for one of these cases, depending on how good is your lawyer and how sympathetic is the judge.
TOS say a lot of things... And most of them won't actually hold up in court...Not really. Most TOS's have terms which basically say "you agree not to sue us", and "we can terminate your account for any reason or no reason at all".
True, but that wasn't my point. What I was saying is that putting 'you agree not to sue us' in the TOS may not block someone from suing. Running roughshod over the TOS arbitrarily has all sorts of bad future implications, but it has happened and will happen again.Contracts generally have a written section which basically says "if parts of this contract are not valid the parts which are valid remain valid". Lawyers aren't stupid.
They're counting on going to court being too expensive for most people who might object to the terms.TOS say a lot of things... And most of them won't actually hold up in court...
Terms of Service themselves are always designed to run roughshod over peoples' legal rights, to try and protect the company from any and all liability for anything they might do.True, but that wasn't my point. What I was saying is that putting 'you agree not to sue us' in the TOS may not block someone from suing. Running roughshod over the TOS arbitrarily has all sorts of bad future implications, but it has happened and will happen again.
Leaked documents reveal the special rules Facebook uses for 5.8M VIPs
"These people can violate our standards without any consequences."arstechnica.com
It's pretty damning.
Yes, not surprising. As another poster mentioned, Trump basically had this too. And that's why you also get so many huge Republican names on Twitter and Facebook who can say pretty much whatever they want, without actually getting in trouble. A lot of them aren't nearly as brave as they try to make themselves out to be, like when they do posts calling the platform out. They KNOW that at worst, the post gets deleted. In most cases, they're just left alone.