The new Twitter Files, part six drop from journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday sheds new light on an otherwise unfolding landscape of how the FBI was in "constant" contact with the tech giant to censor, in a "pervasive" manner, almost unilaterally users on the right, some on the left, but nonetheless both users big and small.
"The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content," Taibbi writes. "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… 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."
While it's widely thought that the government engages in bulk-pulling of data for reasons ranging from a terrorist watch to "economic forecasts," the Twitter Files, as it's come to be known, "show something new." The Twitter Files, Taibbi writes, show how "agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly ... pre-flagged" content "for moderation."
But, according to the FBI, this is perfectly normal. "The FBI," an agency spokesperson told Fox News after Friday's drop, "regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors' subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. 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."
Still, despite what is ostensibly a memo from the agency's top brass, after the drop, an agent reached out to Taibbi explaining that Twitter's "gross" subservience to the agency is not the norm.
"A lot of companies we deal with are adversarial to us," the agent tells Taibbi. "Like T-Mobile is totally adversarial. They love leaking things we're saying if we don't get our process right."
"I feel like that's the default position. People used to get mad about that in the Bureau, but — they're supposed to represent their clients and their customers. Why in the hell would you expect them to make it easy on you? Do the right thing. Do it the right way."
Providing examples of Twitter's obedience, Taibbi cites one email from the FBI to Twitter on Nov. 10.
"Hello Twitter contacts," the federal agent writes, "FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter's Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.
@joahnathan1wade
@fromMA
@madandpissedoff
@mault_thomas
Best Regards,
Fred
FBI SF"
"Twitter personnel in that case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts, including @fromma, whose tweets are almost all jokes ... including his 'civic misinformation,'" Taibbi writes. The civic misinformation @fromMA in question was a joke advising "Republicans to vote tomorrow, Wednesday November 9."
In another example of FBI censorship, the former Rolling Stone journalist points to an FBI email suggesting to their "Twitter contacts" the two accounts mentioned below "may potentially constitute violations of Twitter's terms of Service."
But oddly, the examples the FBI provides of an unprovoked future offense are both clear jokes. One example from @byrum_wade, username "Ultra MAGA," written on midterm Election Day 2022, reads: "Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday November 9th."
The other example provided comes from @ClaireFosterPHD, who regularly jests about Democrat talking points from an ironic perspective. "For every negative comment on this post," they write in the FBI's cited example, "I'm adding another vote for the democrats," and "If you're not wearing a mask, I'm not counting your vote."
When notified about the flagging," @ClaireFosterPHD writes that "anyone who cannot discern obvious satire from reality has no place making decisions for others or working for the feds."
In previous Twitter File drops, journalists provided exposes on Twitter's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the blacklisting of conservative accounts, and the lead-up to the suspension of former President Donald Trump.
"What most people think of as the 'deep state,'" Taibbi concludes, "is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless."
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