While Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that his company's platform is designed to give regular people an equal voice with the elites of politics, culture and journalism while employing a content moderation policy that treats everyone the same, a new report from the Wall Street Journal contends that in private, the company does something very different.
According documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook sometimes exempts high-profile users from its rules.
"The program, known as 'cross check' or 'XCheck,' was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists," WSJ reports. "Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company's normal enforcement process, the documents show. Some users are 'whitelisted'—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come."
The program reportedly showed favor to high-profile figures who violated Facebook's policies about harassment or inciting violence.
"In 2019, it allowed international soccer star Neymar to show nude photos of a woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his fans before the content was removed by Facebook," the report continues. "Whitelisted accounts shared inflammatory claims that Facebook's fact checkers deemed false, including that vaccines are deadly, that Hillary Clinton had covered up 'pedophile rings,' and that then-President Donald Trump had called all refugees seeking asylum 'animals,' according to the documents."
Read the full report over at The Wall Street Journal.
Some legal experts expressed surprise Wednesday after a federal appeals court ruled that an attorney representing Donald Trump in the classified documents case must provide notes, transcripts and other evidence to prosecutors, but the former president should have seen it coming.
That’s according to former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann, who said that a 2017 ruling involving Trump’s former campaign manager provided a road map to U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell’s Wednesday ruling that Evan Corcoran must provide evidence to prosecutors under the crime-fraud exception.
Howell cited the crime-fraud exception in her 2017 ruling that an attorney representing former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and political consultant Rick Gates was required to testify in the Mueller probe.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to block a federal judge’s order last week ordering Corcoran to turning over evidence to special counsel Jack Smith.
“I think she must have been feeling very confident that there's just no argument here, that this is either attorney-client privilege, and even if it is that if the crime fraud exception applies, and there's a very simple rule, which is you cannot commit a crime using your lawyer,” Weissman said Wednesday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House.”
“That does not make something privileged,” Weissman added.
“And so you would think Donald Trump could have looked at what happened with Manafort, seen that the judge ordered the exact same thing and learned his lesson, but apparently he didn’t.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
MSNBC 03 22 2023 16 10 35 www.youtube.com
Speaking on CNN this Wednesday, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig talked about the current legal threats facing Donald Trump, saying that the former president should be concerned.
Honig first addressed Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Trump alleged mishandling of classified documents, where an appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ordered one of Trump's lawyers to him to testify before a federal grand jury.
"This tells us that the Justice Department believes and was able to prove to the satisfaction of a federal judge that Donald Trump committed a crime and the crime here appears to be obstruction," Honig said. "The theory is that Donald Trump lied to the FBI through his lawyers about those classified documents. It is important to keep in mind the burden of proof here is lower than it would be at trial."
In regards to Trump's alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, Honig said that the grand jury's failure to meet today in spite of rumors that Trump would be indicted could be due to three things: one, that the grand jury wants to take time to consider more evidence; two, "there's a witness that the DA wants to call that wasn't available today"; and three, that Trump already negotiated an "actual surrender will happen on a certain day."
RELATED: Appeals court quickly shoots down attempt to block Trump lawyer from testifying
Honig went on to say that while he has faith in Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg as a prosecutor, he questions the wisdom of bringing a "historic" case against a former president over what is basically a "bookkeeping failure."
According to Honig, the biggest threat Trump faces in the case regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Police are looking into an incident in which a man in a small upstate New York community outside Buffalo screamed racial slurs at a Black couple and called for Black and Latino people to be killed, reported The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
"Kevin and Cheryl Moses, a married Black couple, went to the Aldi’s in Cheektowaga — just outside of Buffalo — on Monday, according to The Buffalo News. Kevin shopped while Cheryl waited in the car, and when he returned, his wife complained that a man in another vehicle had allegedly hit their car," reported Brooke Leigh Howard. "Kevin told the local outlet that when he confronted the driver, the man quickly became aggressive and attacked him with racial slurs."
"'You are a fucking n-----,' the man says, turning around to face the camera. 'You’re not even fucking animal,'" the report continued. "'Kill all n------!' the man then chants after closing the trunk to his Scion and before putting away his shopping cart back at the supermarket. 'Kill all s-----!' Kevin urges the man to provide his name. 'Go away, n----- boy!' the man shouts instead. 'You are an example of an ignorant man, sir,' Kevin says."
According to the report, Kevin told the man “You just made YouTube!” after he walked back to the car, to which the man responded, “Why don’t you call the police like n------,” and told him more Black people should have been murdered in the TOPS supermarket shooting.
IN OTHER NEWS: Appeals court quickly shoots down attempt to block Trump lawyer from testifying
That attack, which killed 10 Black shoppers, was committed by a white supremacist who believed in the "Great Replacement," a conspiracy theory that mass immigration and births of nonwhite people are deliberate population engineering to crowd out white people from existence in countries where they are currently a majority.
Police in Cheektowaga say they are investigating the incident, saying, “We take these incidents very seriously and are using all our resources to investigate it and will work with the Erie County District Attorney’s Office to determine if criminal charges will be pursued.”
Watch video below or at this link.
Copyright © 2023 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com, for support contact support@rawstory.com.
