Facebook gave politicians 13 exemptions to its content-moderation rules over a one-year period because their offending posts were determined to be newsworthy, the company revealed Thursday in a series of quarterly reports on its moderation practices, a report said.
The Washington Post quoted Facebook spokeswoman Jen Ridings as confirming that none of the 13 politicians granted exemptions is American.
The company also said it had applied the newsworthiness exception to 55 other cases between June 2021 and June 2022. Of the 55 other, one was a post from the United States, Ridings said. The company provided few other details about the exempted posts but on its website it gave three examples.
Facebook reportedly said it was releasing the data in response to the Oversight Board’s criticism and that it would update the numbers in future reports.
According to The Washington Post, the disclosures offer new details about the company’s treatment of politicians who violate its rules, an issue that was brought to the fore by the platform’s suspension of former president Donald Trump’s account after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. For years, Facebook has been criticized for giving too much deference to politicians such as Trump who broke the platform’s rules, while conservatives have said Facebook’s suspension of Trump was overly punitive of a world leader.
The report noted that Facebook in June 2021 said that it would no longer automatically give politicians a pass for newsworthiness when they break the company’s rules.