Meta oversight board slams Facebook's special treatment of VIPs and demands an ... trends now

Meta's internal oversight board slammed the company's policies that give VIP users - including celebrities, politicians and business partners - preferential treatment on Facebook and Instagram. 

If you're a regular user of either platform, your speech is subject to the tech giant's frequently controversial content moderation policies. However, if your name is Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian or you simply have a very high follower count, you have more leeway to share and say things that violate the rules.

Known as cross-check, the internal program at Facebook and Instagram protects celebrities and other high-profile users from having their content automatically taken down by the company's algorithms. 

However, disclosures from whistleblower Frances Haugen, who testified before Congress in detail about the program, seem to have informed the oversight board's assessment. Haugen has said the firm chooses 'profits over safety.' 

'The board is concerned about how Meta has prioritized business interests in content moderation,' the report stated. The program, it said, 'provided extra protection for the expression of certain users.' 

When the oversight board began its inquiry into the cross-check program, Meta was performing an astounding 100 million enforcement attempts on content each day. 

Therefore, even if the firm was able to make such decisions with 99% accuracy - an impossible standard - it would still make one million mistakes per day.