Users whitelisted on Facebook‘s XCheck program can, under certain circumstances, break the platform’s rules that would otherwise get regular users banned. Politicians, celebrities, and high-profile users were among those exempted from XCheck.
Facebook XCheck was initially designed to flag posts made by whitelisted users and ensure that they are routed to more trained moderators who can enforce the rules. But that didn’t really happen.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, over 5.8 million XCheck whitelisted users were being protected for almost 2 years now. Instead of going through XCheck and following FB rules like everybody else, only 10% of their posts were actually flagged and reviewed.
Facebook says the XCheck program is meant to “accurately enforce policies on content that could require more understanding.” The company admitted that they had identified issues relating to the software and they were working on improving them.
This is good news, let’s see how it will affect real users, and whether it will affect the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on this platform.