Thread by @WSJ

Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said that Facebook allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame on.wsj.com/3Aa7XZg

In private, Facebook built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to an extensive array of internal company documents reviewed by the Journal on.wsj.com/2Xp1cEK

Some VIPs are rendered immune from all enforcement actions. Others are allowed to publish rule-violating material—including posts containing harassment or incitement to violence—pending employee reviews that often never come, the documents show. on.wsj.com/3C9bkQK

In 2019, Facebook allowed Brazilian soccer star Neymar to show nude photos of a woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his fans for more than a day—a post Facebook described in a separate document as “revenge porn” on.wsj.com/390F06a

Some of the users shown special treatment shared inflammatory claims that Facebook’s fact checkers deemed false, including that Hillary Clinton had covered up “pedophile rings” and that then-President Trump had called all refugees seeking asylum “animals” on.wsj.com/3hoV720

Despite Facebook’s attempts to rein in its system, it grew to include at least 5.8 million users in 2020, documents show. In some instances, special status was granted to accounts with little record of who had granted it and why. on.wsj.com/3nsv79H

A 2019 internal review found such favoritism to be both widespread and “not publicly defensible” on.wsj.com/3tA8lxM

Last year, Facebook’s system allowed posts that violated its rules to be viewed at least 16.4 billion times, before later being removed. Nevertheless, the program added tens of thousands of accounts last year. on.wsj.com/3EanMlb