Facebook under fire for allegations of putting profit ahead of reforms
'Social Dilemma' star Joe Toscano breaks down documents showing the tech giant privately built a system that has exempted high-profile users from its rules.
Ex-Google consultant Joe Toscano blasted Facebook for putting profits ahead of people after a pair of "catastrophic" reports indicate the tech giant allows celebrities to break the platform’s rules and executives recognize its photo-sharing app can be harmful to teenage girls.
"The reality is Facebook's just doing business as usual, right? What's Facebook's product? We always got to keep going back to that. What’s their product? The reality is their product is outrage, its scandal, its sex. It's anything that will get you to click," Toscano said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed documents that prove Facebook has privately "built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules" using a program that was "initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists."
Former Google consultant Joe Toscano is a key figure in the wildly popular Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma," that details the negative impact Big Tech can have on people.
FACEBOOK SAYS ITS RULES APPLY TO ALL. COMPANY DOCUMENTS REVEAL A SECRET ELITE THAT’S EXEMPT.
The program allows Facebook honchos to shield "millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process," the Journal reported.
The bombshell report, "Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt," cited documents to report that a program called XCheck -- sometimes known as cross check -- allows important users to post content that would normally violate the social media platform’s rules against things such as harassment and inciting violence.
Toscano, a key figure in the popular Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma," which details the negative impact Big Tech can have on people, doesn’t think Facebook will stop focusing on the bottom line anytime soon.
"What they're doing here is they're identifying the people who they know to be driving the most eyeballs to their platform and henceforth driving them the most money and they're giving them a pass to say, ‘Hey, you know what, what you're doing is not right according to our rules, but you're making us a lot of money and you have the potential to make us a lot more money. So we're going to let it slide, but just let you know this wasn't right,’" Toscano said. "It doesn’t shock me at all."
Despite the report, Toscano doesn’t expect Facebook to make significant changes to the XCheck program without a government intervention.
"The best guess for me is they're going to change the name internally and continue to hide things," he said. "I just don’t think it’s going to change."
In response to the Wall Street Journal report, Facebook claimed its XCheck program is no secret, but admitted it is imperfect.
FACEBOOK DENIES HAVING ‘2 SYSTEMS OF JUSTICE’ FOR USERS AFTER SCATHING WSJ REPORT
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone took to Twitter to react to the Journal's story, first pointing to a blog post from 2018 where Facebook defended itself against another critical report on its policing. That post admits Facebook grants a "cross-check" to high-profile accounts like those of celebrities.
"As we said in 2018: ‘Cross-check’ simply means that some content from certain Pages or Profiles is given a second layer of review to make sure we’ve applied our policies correctly," Stone wrote, citing the earlier post before claiming, "There aren’t two systems of justice; it’s an attempted safeguard against mistakes."
"In the end, at the center of this story is Facebook's own analysis that we need to improve the program," Stone went on to say. "We know our enforcement is not perfect and there are tradeoffs between speed and accuracy."
The Facebook exec concluded, "The WSJ piece repeatedly cites Facebook's own documents pointing to the need for changes that are in fact already underway at the company. We have new teams, new resources and an overhaul of the process that is an existing work-stream at Facebook."
Toscano dismissed Facebook’s explanation as a typical "PR statement" from the tech giant.
INSTAGRAM ACKNOWLEDGES APP CAN HARM TEENS' SELF-ESTEEM IN RESPONSE TO REPORT
"I mean, yeah, they have double layers. Obviously, what they're saying right there is that they have double standards. Why does my post as someone who's not famous, who doesn't have money, why does my post not get the double standard there? Because I'm not driving them as much money as some of these celebrities or some of these politicians," Toscano said. That's the reality, it’s a double standard… treat everyone equally. I think it’s pretty simple."
The WSJ followed up with a second report indicating that the tech company is well aware that its photo-sharing app, Instagram, can be for teen girls' self-esteem.
Researchers tapped by Facebook to examine the app's impact on young users' mental health over the past three years found that 32% of teen girls who "felt bad about their bodies" said Instagram made the issue worse, according to WSJ.
EX-GOOGLE CONSULTANT SOUNDS ALARM ON NEGATIVE IMPACT OF BIG TECH IN ‘THE SOCIAL DILEMMA’
"Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression," another slide read, according to WSJ. "This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups."
Toscano said Facebook is "harming" the nation by declining to take action.
"They're harming us. They're harming our communities. If this was Volvo and their seat belts weren't working, we wouldn't be like, ‘Oh, yeah, Volvo. Keep making those cars.’ Volvo would have a recall. They wouldn't have those cars on the market until they fixed it," Toscano said.
"Why are we allowing this company to do anything differently? Why are they not shut down temporarily until they figure out how to fix this? You know, this is more than just the seatbelt issue," Toscano continued. "This is catastrophic. You're causing depression, suicide, lifelong impacts on these children...how are we allowing this?"
Karina Newton, Instagram's head of public policy, said in a Tuesday blog post that it stands by the research, which demonstrates the company's "commitment to understanding complex and difficult issues young people may struggle with, and informs all the work" Instagram does "to help those experiencing these issues."
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"We’re proud that our app can give voice to those who have been marginalized, that it can help friends and families stay connected from all corners of the world, that it can prompt societal change; but we also know it can be a place where people have negative experiences, as the Journal called out today," Newton said in the blog post.
Toscano co-founded the Better Ethics and Consumer Outcomes Network (BEACON) organization that aims to "advance the quality of human-computer experiences through values-based technology education and innovation." He expects to launch Pulse Policy later this year, which he said will further help people online with data protection measures.
FOX Business' Breck Dumas and Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
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