THE 11th AND 12th INSTALLMENTS OF THE TWITTER FILES were released and presented by Matt Taibbi. Part 11 described how Twitter allowed the intelligence community into its realm. Specifically, the government intimidated Big Tech companies to start censoring in 2017 using the Trump-Russia-collusion narrative. Yes, that implies other social media was complicit.
Back in Aug. of 2017, Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts that allegedly had “suspected Russian origin.” Twitter, though, didn’t think they had the same problem. The company kept the focus on FB, as evidenced by a “privileged and confidential” email on the matter from Colin Crowell that had the subject line, “Russian election meddling.” By Sept., though, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible offenders with another 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts from a set of 2,700 manually examined.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was furious, finding Twitter’s presentation before the Intel Committee “inadequate on every level.” Crowell later sent an email to then-owner Jack Dorsey saying that an off-the-record closed-door meeting with the committee was more cordial and he promised to “circle back” with more information on their queries. On the House side, he told Dorsey Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Twitter had “significant forensic work to do to understand the depth and breadth of Russian activity during the [206 presidential” campaign.” (Brackets added.). Crowell added that Warner had a political incentive to pressure the industry generally and Twitter specifically t”to keep producing material.”
Finally, Crowell added that Hillary Clinton had been blaming social media’s lack of censorship of “Russian propaganda” in her “What Happened” book tour and that third party academics and researchers were hurting the company by claiming “the bot/Russian troll problem” was “significant.” Crowell followed up on this by noting Clinton had said, “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”
Recognizing there was a PR problem, Twitter thereafter formed a “Russia Task Force” to proactively investigate itself. The plan of attack outlined by Policy Director Carlos Monje was to review the 2016 election, prepare for congressional hearings, reaching out to researchers, reporters and Congress, and evaluate whether policy needed change. Ultimately the search was a dud, finding only possible “lone-wolf type activity.” By Oct., all that the task force found was “15 high risk accounts, 3 of which have connections with Russia, although 2 are RT.” A week later, it completed its examination, finding 32 suspicious accounts, 17 of which were connected with Russia, and 2 of which “have significant spend,” and one which was RT. Nonetheless, a panicked headline “Russian Influence Reached 126 million Through Facebook Alone” appeared and another, “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes” was attributed by Politico to an Intel Committee source.
Once Congress threatened Twitter with costly litigation, the company saw the light and the significance of its Russia problem. A new law sponsored by Sens. Warner, Klobuchar, and McCain would threaten its political advertising revenue, so Twitter was prepared to remove RT and Sputnik to placate Congress. Reporters chimed in, claiming to find new “Russian-linked bot accounts.” Twitter looked into it and found they were principally active in German and English and related to Brexit. After Buzzfeed published, though, Twitter backtracked and apologized for the accounts they had said were not a problem. At this point, the threat of litigation and scare headlines pushed by Congress and intel sources became a model to get Twitter to cave to moderation and became formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement. In public, it said it removed content “at our sole discretion” even though they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.” This became the new status quo.
Part 12 of The Twitter Files showed the continued use of the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax even years later to force Big Tech to censor as desired—in this case, with Covid-19 content. By early 2020, government agencies were bypassing Twitter and going straight to MSM with suspect accounts. In Feb., with the Covid pandemic underway, the Global Engagement Center went to the media with a report, “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” GEC was a new analytic intelligence arm in the State Dept. It identified accounts as “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” GEC flagged accounts retweeting news that Twitter banned ZeroHedge, which they said was disinformation since it claimed the virus had a lab origin. MSM echoed this with, e.g., a Politico story about how “Russian, Chinese, Iranian Disinformation Narratives Echo One Another.”
In May, an email from Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth updated his team on work with Clemson researchers working on “a media literacy tool to help consumers identify when they might be engaging with an inauthentic persona online,” where he felt he had developed a good rapport. But the Clemson lab continued to bypass Twitter. The GEC wanted to publish a list of 5,500 accounts it said would would “amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation” about COVID,” and Twitter was unhappy. The accounts followed two or more Chinese diplomatic accounts, but the list, then 250,000 in toto, included Canadian officials and a CNN account.
Roth believed the GEC was using intel from other agencies to “insert themselves” into social media moderation. They also shared their material with the press before Twitter could review it. Twitter was displeased. Then the F.B.I. told Twitter the GEC wanted to be involved in the “industry call” between social media companies and the DHS and F.B.I. At that point, the social media companies were talking to each other. Roth sent a confidential email about the problem which would only worsen as the 2020 election heated up. Multiple emails passed between the USG and social media over how the relationships would work. The F.B.I.’s Elvis Chan then circulated private numbers for all the chief moderation officers in a Word document with the subject line, List of Numbers.
By September, emails were sent to Senate intel regarding Twitter’s suspension of 5 accounts that had little impact before deletion, but which Twitter could claim to have worked with the F.B.I. on. Before long, it seems as if everyone in the USG was participating in the censorship. Some were requesting accounts of people they disliked to be suspended. A notable example was House intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asking that senior reporter for RealClearInvestigations.com; New York Post columnist; Hoover Institution media fellow; and former-D.C. bureau chief Paul Sperry be suspended, suppressing him in search results, ceasing the spread of the info, and labeling and reducing the visibility of his content. Although Sperry was ultimately suspended, Twitter declined Schiff’s request, though they honored plenty of others.
Lists of requests were increasingly sent and later included censorship requests surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine based only on the assertion that “[t]he attached email accounts… were possibly used for ‘influence operations, social media collection, or social engineering.’” Twitter was even warned about a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin who alleged Joe Biden was a corrupt U.S. official. Further demands on Twitter came fast and furious. It appears Twitter received underpayment of $3,415,323 for its inconvenience. It also appears much of what was censored was also true.
Image: Chuck Schumer Senate TV.
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