Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has announced a coalition of 14 state attorneys general seeking additional information about the XCheck program that gave an estimated 5.8 million Facebook users—including politicians, celebrities, and influencers—special treatment.
The Wall Street Journal revealed the XCheck program in September as part of its series called “The Facebook Files.” The report, which was based on internal company documents as well as interviews with the Journal‘s anonymous sources, claimed that members of the program were effectively allowed to violate Facebook’s content policies without fear of reprisal.
Now this group of state attorneys general wants to know if Facebook extended those protections to the so-called “Disinformation Dozen, which is related to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s finding that “just twelve anti-vaxxers are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms,” per its analysis of content shared on social media.
“Facebook broke its promise to rid its platform of dangerous anti-vaccination disinformation,” Attorney General Tong said in a statement. “We’ve learned now that Facebook has two sets of rules—one for the rich and powerful, and one for everyone else. Facebook needs to come clean about its XCheck program and disclose whether it has granted special whitelist protection to reckless influencers peddling COVID-19 lies.”
The state attorneys general expressed their concern in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In addition to questions specifically covering the Disinformation Dozen, the group also asked for more information about vaccine-related content in general. Questions included:
The group also requested “all policies and user terms and conditions that concern the protection of users from false or misleading content.” Unlike the specific questions asked in the letter, that request isn’t limited to the Disinformation Dozen or anti-vaccination at all. Facebook’s response could make it easier to learn more about how its platform is used to spread misinformation.
Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
