The FBI is defending itself in the wake of the release of the latest “Twitter Files,” which show that the agency had regularly asked Twitter to censor/silence certain accounts.
“The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities,” an FBI spokesperson told the Daily Mail late Friday.
“Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson basically argued that their liaison with Twitter was customary and routine. However, such liaisons weren’t customary enough for the FBI to admit which other social media companies it’s been in communication with.
The FBI’s statement to the Daily Mail came in response to the release of the latest installment of the “Twitter Files”:
1. THREAD: The Twitter Files, Part Six
TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
This installment documented how the FBI used to be in constant contact with Twitter officials prior to billionaire Elon Musk purchasing the social media platform.
“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth,” journalist Matt Taibbi reported.
Some of the emails were benign, like when San Francisco-based FBI agent Elvis Chan wished Roth a Happy New Year, or when agents sought information on certain criminal suspects. Others, not so much.
“[A] surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts,” according to Taibbi.
These requests came from an FBI task force known as FTIF. Created after the 2016 presidential election that Democrats claimed was stolen, the task force “swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”
And to, more specifically, censor and silence people — even ones guilty of no more than making jokes:
“HELLO TWITTER CONTACTS”: The master-canine quality of the FBI’s relationship to Twitter comes through in this November 2022 email, in which “FBI San Francisco is notifying you” it wants action on four accounts: pic.twitter.com/LjgB6fxENo
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
14.Twitter personnel in that case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts, including @fromma, whose tweets are almost all jokes (see sample below), including his “civic misinformation” of Nov. 8: pic.twitter.com/gwiDtPcWZv
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
15. Just to show the FBI can be hyper-intrusive in both directions, they also asked Twitter to review a blue-leaning account for a different joke, except here it was even more obvious that @clairefosterPHD, who kids a lot, was kidding: pic.twitter.com/uLxHayY11C
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
“Anyone who cannot discern obvious satire from reality has no place making decisions for others or working for the feds,” Twitter user @ClaireFosterPHD, who was one of the jokers targeted by Twitter, said in a statement to Taibbi.
“My thoughts initially include 1. Seems like prima facie 1A violation 2. Holy cow, me, an account with the reach of an amoeba 3. What else are they looking at?” another victim, @lexitollah, added.
“I can’t believe the FBI is policing jokes on Twitter. That’s crazy,” a third Twitter user, @Tiberius444, said.
https://t.co/ZQeb9Ko06p an internal email from November 5, 2022, the FBI’s National Election Command Post, which compiles and sends on complaints, sent the SF field office a long list of accounts that “may warrant additional action”: pic.twitter.com/yILcgjFyev
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
Speaking on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” late Friday, columnist Charlie Hurt of the Washington Examiner argued that this targeting of Twitter users’ free speech rights was “a clear violation of the First Amendment.”
“If this was happening during the Pentagon Papers, and we were seeing this level of collusion between the federal government and news, there would rightly be an outcry,” he said.
The latest “Twitter Files” also provoked disgust from eponymous host Tucker Carlson.
“The FBI was working for a political party – the one in charge. How is this different from what the secret police do in authoritarian countries?” he said.
But according to Taibbi’s reporting, it wasn’t just the FBI. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had all been in close contact with Twitter as well.
https://t.co/9IfX3IPzyi a letter to former Deputy General Counsel (and former top FBI lawyer) Jim Baker on Sep. 16, 2022, legal exec Stacia Cardille outlines results from her “soon to be weekly” meeting with DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: pic.twitter.com/oE8fDjomNP
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
37.Reports also came from different agencies. Here, an employee recommends “bouncing” content based on evidence from “DHS etc”: pic.twitter.com/5DP8DEFZiO
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
39.Twitter for instance received reports via the Partner Support Portal, an outlet created by the Center for Internet Security, a partner organization to the DHS.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
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