The documents do show that Facebook is trying to do away with whitelisting. They indicated the company sought to eliminate complete immunity for “high severity” violations of its rules in the first half of 2021. However, it appears that by March, the company was experiencing challenges in that regard.

The documents also indicated that there are no plans to just treat high-profile users the same as the rest of the unwashed masses. One of the memos noted that the company does not “have systems built out to do that extra diligence for all integrity actions that can occur for a VIP.” Facebook seems to be trying not to take steps that could anger influential individuals using its platform. //

There are two motivators here: Politics and profit.

In general, Facebook tends to favor content created for a left-leaning audience. Its fact-checkers are decidedly partisan and tend to focus primarily on squashing right-leaning posts. It suspended Trump for two years under the guise of trying to eliminate incitements to violence. But the reality is that the company engages in this censorious activity because they have an agenda to serve.

Additionally, Facebook doesn’t want to risk angering the rich and famous individuals using its platform because they could decide to use a different social media company. They don’t want to lose those clicks and advertising dollars. In essence, this wouldn’t be as big an issue if they were honest about it. But, that’s not the world we live in now, is it?