Twitter and the State, Part 2

Yves is here. Tom Neuburger tries to compensate for the mainstream media’s attitude towards the so-called Twitter files: “There’s nothing to see here, move on.” It’s amazing to see how this pose works. Conscientious members of the professional management class don’t bother to challenge the notion that, for example, the FBI was deeply involved in a propaganda campaign designed to dilute access to people and stories deemed dangerous to Democrats. While most readers will recognize that many soi-disant Liberals are fine with authoritarianism as long as it supports their interests and are embarrassed by how far they’ve gone with Twitter… and that no one cares. I wonder what if something will shake their conscience.

Thomas Neuburger. Originally posted on God’s spies

In the previous part –Twitter and the security state– I have provided a single list of links to all the Twitter files published at that time, issues 1 to 5. You can read or view them. there if you want

I also wrote that when there are new Twitter files, I would expand the list. Since then there have been three more. Scroll down the links.

Twitter Files 6written by Matt Taibbi, provides a preview of the extent of the connection between the FBI and Twitter.

As Taibbi said in various interviews since (example here), they just scratch the surface in those connections. He said quite a few other agencies are involved in a similar way, including DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and ODNI (Department of Homeland Security). Office of the Director of National Intelligence), as well as others that have not yet been named.

Addition, Twitter Files 6a, also written by Taibbi, quotes a federal inter-agency task force (FITC) questioning Twitter about why it “hadn’t seen much recent activity from official propaganda figures,” while other sources apparently did. (The list of these sources provided by the agency is short.)

The Breaking Points team discusses TF6.

Twitter Files 7, written by Michael Shellenberger, takes a detailed look at Hunter Biden’s laptop story. It’s quite long, but one of the gems of the article is towards the middle, where he talks about how the FBI was preparing Twitter to be “very afraid” of foreign interference in the 2020 election, while, as later court testimony shows under oath, they knew that they had no information at all that 2016 would repeat itself. This happened before the laptop story and shows the overall relationship action that Taibbi called “his”.excellent doggy quality“.

I recommend reading TF7 specifically for this, as here I’m not focusing on interference in 2020 – from the Russians or our own Phantom State – but on the confusion between the aforementioned state and social media platforms.

After all, if you want to influence a nation, you go where ears are gathered. And I am convinced, like many of you, that the Ghost State has been actively involved in the “governance” of the country for decades, of course, with the best of intentions.

As David Swanson wrote in “The Pentagon and the CIA created thousands of Hollywood films“:

Propaganda is most effective when people don’t think it’s propaganda.

More about it here.

I think it’s naïve to think that the Pentagon doesn’t do propaganda at home, either directly or indirectly. To begin with, consider the half trillion dollars in annual risk if the public fails to support the Pentagon’s budget.

Twitter Files Round 2

These are the last Twitter files since the release of the first five. They expand the list of collected here. (Highlight added below.)

Twitter Files 6 – Twitter, FBI affiliate
Matt Taibbi December 16, 2022

3. Twitter’s contacts with the FBI were constant and comprehensive, as if it were a subsidiary.

4. Between January 2020 and November 2022, more than 150 emails were sent between the FBI and former Twitter head of trust and security, Yoel Roth.

5. Some of them are mundane, like San Francisco agent Elvis Chen wishing Roth a Happy New Year along with a reminder to attend “our quarterly call next week.” Others are requests for information from Twitter users related to active investigations.

6. But a surprisingly high number of FBI calls on Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even using joking tweets from accounts with low followings.. […]

Twitter Files 6a – Additional
Matt Taibbi December 18, 2022

2. In July 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan told Twitter chief Yoel Roth that he was expecting written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a multi-agency cyberthreat group.

3. Questionnaires seem unhappy that Twitter implied in the July 20 DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing that “you indicated that you haven’t seen much official propagandist activity on your platform lately.”

4. It would seem that this is good news. The agencies seemed to think otherwise. […]

Twitter Files 7 – FBI and Hunter Biden’s laptop
Michael Shellenberger December 19, 2022

18. This isn’t the first time Twitter’s Roth has taken a stand against the FBI. In January 2020, Roth resisted the FBI’s efforts to force Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process.

19. The pressure was rising:

“We are seeing ongoing (though uncoordinated) efforts by IC. [intelligence community] to encourage us to share more information and change our API policies. They explore and push wherever they can (including whispering to congressional staff).”

twenty Again and again the FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence, and Twitter says it doesn’t find anything worth reporting.

“[W]We have not yet identified the activities that we usually attribute to you (or even mark as interesting in the context of foreign influence).” […]

Why make these lists?

As I have said many times, I am not interested in defending Musk or Trump from what they are doing. sin May to be.

I’m interested in the facts – in particular, the facts of confusion (caution word) between our so-called security establishment and its American targets, by which I mean the public.

I am also worried as very many othersabout the coup in the USA. I just look where there are no others.

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